This is a Naruto/John Carter Crossover Fan Fiction Story Only.
It turns out that they took my words and made them the actual challenge. I was to improve irrigation and cultivation of their farmlands but would only gain their loyalty if they were sufficiently impressed with what I had done.
Only the wisest among them could be the leader of their tribe, and thus I needed to stop at nothing but do something that the current Jeddak of their tribe couldn't even imagine doing, but the thing I had an advantage of experience, to some I may look young, but they can only say that because they don't know they are talking with the man who had a hand in the creation of the hanging gardens of Babylon.
The first I needed to do is take a make and after I sent three shadow clones I had a complete working map of the entire irrigation and duck system, it was impressive however I saw several ways it could be compromised by nature and by people, so I first chose to deal with that, the second was filtration of wastewater, sewers would need to be constructed, but once these were built in every home and barracks, they would essentially be used as a means to produce high-grade fertilizer and even manage to recover some of the water used by the people that would otherwise go to waste.
The sewage would be sent to draining ponds and used the natural heat of the planet to cause metal filters to purify and collect water, the purified water, and dried fertilizer would be mixed with other waste products that come from various production activities would be available to all farmers, it took Naruto less than three days to actually finish modifying the already existing duct and irrigation system to make it something that was as close as to something that could be called indoor plumbing.
This would not only promote food production but also health improvements and by the end of his explanation and seeing the early effects of the changed system, the current Jeddak could not help but to be amazed at what he was seeing, people could take a bath in the privacy of their home, private latrines, and urinals, and the way the waste was handled created little in the way of waste.
He walked over to him and took off something from his arm, and handed it to Naruto, "Young man, I have to admit that I had my doubts that you could achieve what is necessary to become my successor and take the position of leader of this tribe, I must confess that seeing that bracelet on your arm, made me think you were just another brute, but you didn't only exceed my expectations but did something that can only be considered a wonder."
As I returned to Dejah and Sola I swear my dog is the only one that seems to be happy to see me, at least that was what it seemed thanks to the way his tail was wagging, "Only one tribe left and they are going to be the most difficult, they are the ones that have the most advanced weapons and ships in the entire planet. Brute force is simply not going to do a thing." Solas of course was right, so I had to fight fire with fire, meaning I had to use my intellect.
Granted the world where I came from was not exactly on the cusp of technological development, but let's face it after thousands of years, I had more than enough time to learn, experiment, and invent. this should prove to be little to no problem at all. My little community was thriving when we had so few people, and yet no other city around wondered why that is.
As we finally made it to the gates of the last settlement we would visit I swear I felt like I was walking through the gates of Konoha all over again, the city was massive, pristine, and made almost entirely of metal and glass, building high enough that people would think could touch the very skies above.
Well that would be impressive to many people, as I walked in I was immediately hammered by another memory as the guard much like the two I always met coming back from a mission just asked me the same word, name, occupation, and purpose, I am not kidding this is the only thing these two guards said to me when they first met me.
Never mind that I am followed by a beast, flanked by what I think they know are pretty much two princesses, who both could in fact beat their skulls in if they pissed them off, maybe that is why they are keeping their introduction so short, trying to avoid that.
Seeing they are such great conversationalists I decided to return the favor by telling them Naruto, Jeddak of two tribes, was here to challenge their Jeddak for the right to rule their tribe, at this moment I honestly thought that civility and common courtesy would be dropped and they would try to at least kill me.
That is when I would be proven wrong, one of the guards simply made a note on what I think is a list of visitors and the other looked at us and simply said, "Very well, please follow me, I shall guide you to where you can meet with our Jeddak, please keep your pet under control, we don't need our people getting hurt by accident."
Unlike the previously supposed cities that I visited, and that includes the one that pretty much adopted me, have a more of a rural feel to it, this place is urban there is no other way to say this, this is an actual city, flying vehicles makes deliveries and mass transit for citizens, shops and people going on about their days,, families buying things and a mother and her child buying groceries while haggling the price of what I think is fish.
This one place hit me so hard about Konoha, that I wouldn't be shocked if I turned at one of the street corners and walked down a few feet I would find a martian version of Ichiraku with a martian Teuchi asking me if I was there for my usual?
I went through what essentially was the same sort of building like a modern version of the Hokage Tower, which includes glares from the green martian secretary for good measure, this place is making me think of my home village so much it was both a little touching and annoying at the same time.
The man who still was seated behind this massive ornate desk and chair simply told us to sit in seats in front of it, "I see you made it, we heard from another tribe that you might come to try and obtain the right to rule our tribe, we have also been keeping an eye on you thanks to the hidden flying observation equipment, you seem to be making unheard of speeds to get here as fast as you did."
He looked at his desk and he then looked at me and smiled, "However in your haste to get here you didn't manage to eat or rest, and it would be unfair if we have you undergo the ritual to challenge my rule, so instead we are going to provide you with a place where you and your mates can sleep for the day, ask for anything you want to eat, and tomorrow once you are fully rested and well fed, then I can tell you how our tribe determines who is the best to rule."
I for one was having a hard time dealing with something this person said she just called the two women that were near me my mates, Dejah was considered property under the laws of the tribe that adopted me, and I am the adopted brother of Solas, so this makes me worried that this might upset them and Dejah is not one to be tender about how she deals with people that anger her if my impression of her is correct.
"You might not know this, but all Martians as you would call us, yes I know you call our world Mars, are essentially shapeshifters, Solas and any other martial can take the form of their mates should they choose to, only two martian races never do that, one is the red Martians and the other is the white Martians, the yellow Martians are xenophobic to the point that they avoid everyone."
"So you should know that your mates can in fact choose a form much like your own, the only reason we can even speculate that the red ones never did that is that they never mated with any of the other martian races, high and mighty as they are, and the white ones are so aggressive how would anyone other martian race even have a chance to form a romantic relationship if their first greeting is them trying to kill anyone who isn't a white martian?"
He looked at me and the two people near me one who looked horrified by what she just heard and much to my surprise it wasn't Dejah that looked like she heard something that fundamentally challenged her entire view of reality. "Before we go into the differences between tribal customs how about you three join me and have dinner with me and my family, I don't honestly know about you, but I am rather hungry."
As the man said that he guided us to what the man called his humble home, to me this place had nothing humble about it, it was a small mansion. As we stepped into the home I could see the level of detail and could feel the strength of the foundation of the home with every single step, the place was sturdy to stand against explosions, and it was decorated to the point it could be called a work of art, and first and foremost it gave a warm and welcoming feeling to those that stepped inside.
The fact is this house was big enough to fit entire families, and that included several generations of them, as they walked into the dining room I saw a lady, two girls, and three boys welcoming the man who invited us in, they were happy to see him and asked him who were his guests. The man quickly told his wife that I was a potential challenger and I would undergo their tribe's rite to rule, but for now, he had invited me and my two mates to come and stay with him and his family for at least a night, since they had traveled quite a long way.
The lady was quiet as she and her daughters went to the kitchen to take the bowls of food but even I can tell they have been working hard to make this meal so it was a simple decision to simply walk with them to the kitchen without saying a word picked up the heaviest bowl and brought it back to the dining room, I set it on the table after I ask where to place it.
Her daughters were quiet, and she clearly is shocked to see me be able to do something like this, to me this thing was practically weightless. As she and her daughters finished serving everyone their food and we all began to eat, I placed a bowl near my chair with some of my food for my pet which he happily ate.
She looked at the two women who she was told were my mates, regardless of how many times I tried to explain that is not the case, "You rule two tribes already, why do you want to become ruler of our tribe? I want to know what is your goal? Why are you doing this? If you become the Jeddak of this tribe too you will be responsible for every member of this tribe, so why do all this?"
I guess no matter what planet I end up on, a mother will always worry about the safety and future of her kids, and a wife will worry for the life of her husband, this it seems is a universal truth, "My goal is simple, unite all the tribes of this world, end conflict, achieve lasting peace, and save this world. I have lived for thousands of years, and even to this day, I have not stopped trying to create lasting peace. So you don't have anything to worry about, I am no danger to you, your husband, or your children, but thank you for this delicious food. I didn't think that something that was made with mostly plants would taste this great."
She laughed and said that I don't look any older than her eldest son, which ironically was seated right in front of me, "I have lived thousands of years, how many, I can't honestly tell you I stopped counting after seven thousand, I was once trained to be a ninja, and as a ninja, I can tell you appearances can be deceptive."
As the meal continued it seems that the entire purpose of the meal was somehow to learn as much of me as possible, and since I had nothing to hide or be afraid of I answered every single question she, her daughters, and even two of her sons asked me, some I think they asked thinking I would not know the answer and fall flat on my face, but tragically for them, I knew the answers to their questions and in such detail that they began to question their own understanding of the things they asked me about.
One of the kids asked me about some of my most fun memories, I could tell them stories of when I had actually caught a beast and given it to my wife covered in this strange mixture of herbs and spices and told her that she should boil it in water, and she did as I asked but without telling me that this thing would either taste bad or that I was insane.
I told them stories about how it was to live before writing was established when history and stories had to be told from one person to an entire group of people, I told them stories of sailing the ocean and wishing that we collected enough rain because the stuff our ship was going through would kill us if we drink it.
"I been through many things, some were wonderful, some unreal and shocking, and some absolutely horrible, my wish for my life is that one-day true peace can be achieved, that people will learn to communicate and resolve their issues without having to fight, and that by doing my best to achieve that I made lives of other people a million times better than how I grew up."
That is when their mother asked what did I mean by that, I told them that my childhood was anything but easy, it was dealing with a lot of things, things that I had little to no control over, I was born an orphan, my parents died on the day I was born, but through many struggles and many challenges I eventually made a home for myself, I had a wife and two kids, so trust me, if you ever have a dream I told the children who were sitting there eating this delicious food that as long as they hold to their dreams, do their best they can become true if they believe it.
As the dinner came to an end, I thank them for both providing me with a place to sleep and a delicious meal, something that had actually improved my understanding of food preparation on the planet, this however brought up the last question which was what did I mean, it sounded like I was comparing their planet with another, which I always do.
I told them how I came to be in their world, and to them, it sounded like a fantastic adventure, a tale they could only think of as fantasy, guns, love, war, epic battles, personal struggles, and a twist-ending that was only the beginning to another story? The kids who were listening to this after dinner were eating it up more than they did the meal they just finished.
If anything when their parents told them it was time for them to go to bed, that is when they complained that they wanted to hear more of the story, it reminded me a lot of how kids act. The thing is this is something I never got to do in my own childhood and this was only making me miss my vixen aunty more and more.
"Thanks for sharing so much of your life story Naruto, and even I can tell you didn't want to make my kids feel bad so you told us a version that they could listen to. I appreciate it, you know how parents worry for their kids since you were one once yourself, as for the challenge to rule for our tribe it is not that bad. You have to prove that you are the wisest, smartest. Most creative person, so basically you have to make an invention that will improve the lives of everyone and one that no one has made before, no pressure."
His wife smiled at me and looked at her husband, "I know much like our kids I want to listen to more of those stories of your past, so as for where you will live, why not live here with us, you can then take as much time as you want to create that new amazing invention, as for my husband he created a fleet of flying orbs that record anything interesting that is happening, so you got to beat that, that is how we knew where you were, what you have done, and how long it would take you to reach our tribe."
Essentially she just told me that everything I have ever done was already known to them because they got dozens if not hundreds of things flying so high in the sky that they are practically invisible to everyone recording everything that I had ever done on Mars. Yes that is going to be a major hurdle if I needed to invent something equal to that, and secondly, unlike my son Boruto and my daughter Himawari, I spent most of my life as a warrior, what could I possibly invent that wasn't a weapon or could be used in war?
For now, I need to go to sleep, I am really tired and so must be Solas and Dejah, if I am being quite honest, I asked them where was my room to which the couple was quite happy to show us the rooms, we each got a room, and I, of course, did the smart thing and asked which one of the rooms could be locked from the inside and nobody could break into it? They laughed and said all of them are like assassinations attempts of the Jeddak are quite common after all.
Yet another thing that was common with the elemental nations, this made me remember what Gaara used to tell me about his childhood, and boy did I feel like my childhood was a dream by comparison to his. As we each went to our rooms we wished each other good night as we entered the rooms. The bed was huge, and the only question is why is there a mirror on the ceiling?
As I finally closed my eyes and sleep finally came, I found myself in an empty void that once was my mindscape, I guess I came here since all that happened recently reminded me of all the people who were long gone, but as I said this the two pieces that were on my body began to glow an eerie golden light, and after this happened reality itself seemed to be forming cracks until I saw a hand punch right through what I think was a wall made of complete darkness.
What I saw next had me speechless, it was Aunty Kurama, but how she and everyone I know have been or should be dead for thousands of years, nothing makes any sense, as she saw me the first thing she did was run towards me in a red flash and before I could ask anything she was passionately kissing me on my lips.
"There Naruto this finally broke you free from that Genjutsu you've been under for the last two months. Relax Naruto your memories have been messed with, you have been through a lot by the looks of your memories but you don't need to worry about it, you are not alone Naruto." I simply can't seem to accept what I was told by the person who I would least expect this from.
"Aunty Kurama what the hell is going on? I remember you and everyone I ever knew died, I have been alone for thousands of years, and now this hallucination of one of my most precious people just kissed me and told me that I had been under a Genjutsu the entire damn time, for thousands of years. How am I supposed to deal with this?"
She looked at me and smiled, "Like the boy who I saw become a man and later achieved his dream of doing something people mocked you for dreaming something they consider impossible for you to do. Wake up Naruto you are not in our dimension you were sent to another dimension after the final battle against Kaguya, but the way she sent you was during battle, it caused you to be sent six thousand years into the past of the universe where you are."
She laughed almost trying not to cry as she looked at me, "For you it had been over six thousand years and we had to wait for our time to synchronize before I could even attempt to find you like this, Naruto it has only been two months since the final battle against Kaguya, I could sense your energy but for some reason I couldn't get a precise location, which I only could do that now."
I only had one question why, why the hell put me through this, something that messed up my memories so much that I can't tell which memories are real and which are fake, cause I remember Hinata and every single friend I had dying, I remember some of them grow old and die before me, and thousands of years were learning and training was my only refuge from the all-consuming depression that had become my life.
Kurama saw that she needed to basically rip off the old bandage and tell it to me straight, "Naruto Kaguya wanted to drown you in such despair and misery that it would break your mind and you would essentially become her obedient puppet. She wanted to use you, as she used Madara and so many others but do so in a much worse manner because she also wanted you to suffer to get revenge on you for daring to stand against her."
She looked around in my mindscape and like I said before it was nothing but darkness everywhere, "First we need to do something about this place, I know the place where we first met was not exactly cozy, the pits and entrails of a power plant were not exactly what you call homey, but this place is downright depressing, so please change this place to something more cheerful cause we got a ton of things to talk about, and I want to do that in a more comfortable surrounding, and no I can't do it, it's your mind so only you can do it."
I guess this proved to me this really is Kurama, I have not gone insane, and this place is looking like this because of my thousands of years of living in a deep depression, so I began to imagine this place looking more like the forest I once made for Kurama, trees, flowers, animals grazing, and a clear sky with a rainbow, couldn't make it more kid-friendly even if I tried.
"Wait, two months, that is it? a little over sixty days? I have been living without you or any other ninja for over six thousand years Kurama, honestly, I had to repress my chakra, or people would have either called me a demon or killed me as a witch, burned me at the stake, drowned in a river, or crucified those were not fun at all, but then again what method of execution would be?"
Kurama turned into her human form which I haven't seen in quite a few thousand years, "Yes Naruto in your dimension you have only been missing for two months, but at least you have enough experience to actually be a decent Hokage, nobody is going to accuse you of being a rookie now are they after having all that life experience. The sad thing is that I can't even remain here, too little chakra in the planet or even the universe, what the hell happened to this dump that it is so chakra depleted, this is worse than what the Okutsuki can do and that is saying something."
After I was free from the Genjutsu I had to go through the entire memories of my entire life picking and repairing the ones that had been clearly modified and restoring the ones that had been destroyed using the fragments of the memory to remake them.
So every one of my precious people is alive, what exactly happened to my team and my friends?" Kurama simply looked at me as she sat down near me trying to clean up my memories making them more organized, "Well Hinata and the kids are doing alright, Boruto became a teacher at the academy, Himawari became his assistant teacher that teaches practical skills, Shikimaru's marriage was done and over faster than you can polish off a bowl of ramen, Ino and her husband got into so many fights it was not even funny, a key part was that Sai wanted their kid to use his painting techniques but Ino wanted him to learn her clan techniques, Sakura was finally happy when they got a divorce and she told them at the final court meeting why not use both."
I decided to ask about my team since she brought up Sakura, "Sakura and Sasuke had one daughter as you should recall, but what you don't know is that they got a divorce, both Sasuke and Sakura got into a fight when it came where the family would live, Sasuke told her that in the Sound Village because it was the perfect place for him to run his information network, but Sakura said she would rather die than to live in the same village where Orochimaru was Kage, Sasuke ended up getting married to your cousin Karin and because of the training she had to go through and the work she does with Sasuke let's just say you wouldn't recognize her if you saw her, after all, she had five kids with Sasuke."
Naruto begins to nods his head and says yeah I do remember that and then pauses for a second and says "wait a minute you said it's only been two months but those events would have happened at least twenty years in the future both my kids with Hinata are not born yet."
After all, it's only been two months and that would mean that the Konoha twelve are still seventeen years old.
Kurama then said to Naruto that she was making sure that he had the memories of his past life Hiro and it looks like he does. She laughed as she mentions that she just said that part to test his memory and to try and get some of his memories to repair by the sheer reaction to what she just said, which many of them in fact did.
As much as he would like to hold it against her, he had to admit it was a very good prank, and as a prankster, he knew that he had to give credit where it was due, "As I said before been living pretending to have no chakra for over sixty thousand years, got married a few times, had a few kids with them, but they all grew old and died for some strange reason, my wives I understand but it was always shocking that my bloodline never was passed down to my kids."
"And after a series of adventures and quite a few bloody wars, I somehow ended up on the planet Mars of all things just because I got teleported to Mars by pretty much repeating the last words of an asshole that tried to kill me and Powell, you saw my memories no need to explain who the hell that traitor is."
Kurama looked at me with this look as of get on with it, "I pretty much figured that I would be stuck on this planet for the rest of eternity, so I figured might as well stop the people that are trying to basically destroy this planet, restore it and maybe I would have a good life here, I got adopted by an actual parent who cares about his kids, I say that pretty much tell me the people on this planet can be decent if we take care of the idiots with the sense of a sociopath high out of his gourd."
Kurama told me that was a nice idea, and if we could somehow get more of the pieces that were stuck on my body, maybe then they could finally use his abilities in this dimension allowing him to not only restore life to the planet they were on but every planet in that dimension by infusing and giving chakra to all these planets, restoring that energy back to them.
I told her that was a wonderful idea, but right now I need to figure out how to outsmart an engineering scientific genius or their equivalent in creating, inventing, or discovering something so outlandish and impressive that this tribe will make him their new ruler, and give him another piece of armor. They hold one of these pieces as a badge of their position as rulers the only way for me to get them is to become the ruler of their tribe.
Kurama asked why not simply sneak in the night, and when nobody was looking simply kill the leader and steal the armor, to which my responses were that it would be dishonorable, it would make me no better than Danzo, and I hoped the idea how to win will come to me in one of my dreams, Kurama told me that she was sure something will come to me as my memories restore themselves while I sleep.