Naruto's Dream

Naruto rubbed his forehead, he could feel the distinct throb of pain that forewarned, the appearance of a headache. It probably shouldn't of been possible to get a headache in a dream, but he was sure the Pink goddess in front of him could manage it. Opening his eye, he stared at the chirpy Woman whom had claimed him as her adoptive child.

She was sitting their glancing around his… Dream scape? Mind scape? Whatever it was called, in a form of fascination. The shelves upon shelves of endless records, spiking her interest but only slightly. There was a certain amount of familiarity, twinkling in her eyes- like when you went to a friends house, but they'd moved the furniture around.

It was interesting, and new, but only to a point.

Using his hands to push himself further, into the couch which was now a green velvety material.- that was another thing, the longer he stayed inside, his Dream-scape or whatever it was called, the more defined the things around him became.- Naruto sat up straight, and looked at Pandora.

She was sitting across from him, a small coffee table made of some undesirable material sitting in between them. One her fingers idly twirling a lock of her violet hair, which was still, put into two ponytail, trailing out behind her.

The old fashioned, ruby earrings jingling slightly as she turned her head to look about the… er dream?

Clearing his throat the blond took the plunge. "So, Mom…" Pandora's head snapped in his direction, so fast that if she wasn't a goddess she would have gotten whiplash "Just what present were you talking about? Also while I'm asking questions… just where are we?" A Pleasant smile broke out on the ancient goddess's face.

"To Answer your second question, we're in your head, more specifically a part of your mind, created when you became a Campione." The Goddess said more than happy to explain. "You see when a Campione is reborn, one part of the process, shoves a bunch of knowledge and other such things to help the Campione survive. While a lot of this knowledge is lost in the process, most of it remains on an instinctual level. Hardly any Campione ever manage to retain any of this knowledge consciously."

Pandora continued on, in her signature chirpy tone, practically bouncing in her seat as she did so. "This room is the result of all that knowledge, settling down as it assimilates completely. Up to this point, you've been drawing on it as a separate entity, now it's yours completely!" Cheered Pandora, her arms flying about in an overjoyed gesture.

Naruto smirked into his fist as he chuckled at his adoptive mother's antics. He was mildly surprised when the thought wasn't followed by the now signature awkward feeling but pushed the matter aside. Opening his mouth to ask another question, he missed the happy blush on the, Greek woman's face.

"So all these records are just… representations of the knowledge I've accumulated so far?" the goddess hummed slightly before answering. "Yes and no. Right now the room is just displaying, all the possible authorities you could have. To simplify, all the knowledge shoved into the head of the Campione comes from the Akashic record, a recording of all future and past possibilities for our universe… I do believe you gave Plutarch quite the headache a few years ago when that sliver of your soul fell into our dimension." She said nonchalantly, as if talking about nothing more than a news broadcast.

If Naruto had been drinking anything at that moment, he'd have taken a spit take. Actually, this was his mind, so did that mean if he imagined a glass of water it would appear? Inwardly he debated the pros and cons of summoning a glass of water just to do a spit take.

Unaware of her adoptive child's musings the goddess shrugged off her previous line of thought and continued with her explanation. "The reason you couldn't play any of the records was because, you have yet to obtain the Authority, or it is no longer possible for you to gain them, and as such Plutarch-the keeper of the Akashic record-has censored them." The girl stated without fanfare.

Shaken from, his spit taking thoughts, Naruto nodded to the goddess's theory. Although he had the distinct thought someone should probably give Plutarch a hug, or perhaps a cookie. No idea why he did, but he did. Okay now he's confusing himself, shaking away his confusion he looked towards the goddess who had trailed off at some point.

'Better get this show on the road.' he sighed "Okay so now that that's out of the way what was this gift you were talking about?" He may have sounded a bit ungrateful, but he was twelve, and you try stopping yourself from getting excited when someone says they've got a present for you.

The goddess blinked, as if coming back to reality. Before giving him a motherly smile, almost like she was watching an over excited five year old. "That, involves another explanation." She said joyfully, as if explanations were the next best best thing since sliced bread. Now that he thought about it, from the Marquis's rather limited lecture on campione, he could gather the only real time Pandora ever got to talk to anyone was when, someone killed a god, and even then they don't really remember it.

It seems he was the odd one out even among the odd.

His attention was however returned to the goddess, only to find her pouting in, what most people would call an adorable fashion. Naruto however wasn't all that normal, that and he'd lived with Shizuka, no matter how short it was. Therefor he only found it cute… extremely cute.

Smiling sheepishly at Pandora, he waved for her to continue explaining. Giving a cross humph, she continued. "As you would know had you been paying attention." Cue glare. "the Authorities acquired by killing rouge gods, are much like the extra knowledge given during rebirth." The all knowing woman explained, her features softening as she continued to lecture him. "That is that they both have to be assimilated. The more of the Authority you incorporate into your body, and mind, the easier the Authority will be to use, and the more willing the Authority will become to follow your commands, without lashing out at you." Pandora looked at him to make sure he was following along, beaming proudly when she found Naruto listening intently to her every word.

Naruto was pretty sure she could have been a great teacher.

"As more of the Authority is subsumed, you won't have to worry about lengthy chants or, harsh consequences for using an authority too long. Of course their are still consequences, just far less damning." Breathing the still joyful goddess, skipped back to her seat-having left it at some point.- "My gift, comes in two parts-or three I guess. I sorta… might've accidentally made a door to your mind when I was, working with the original presents…" The goddess chuckled nervously as she avoided eye contact, playing idly with her hands. "So you basically have an all access pass to my part of the nether world…" Shaking her head, the bubbly goddess bounced in her seat. "As for the intentional part of the gift, well I sped up the assimilation process for your authorities, which is unfortunately only a one time thing. So don't go expecting me to do it every time okay?"

Staring at her face Naruto could tell that was a lie. All he had to do was put on a few crocodile tears, sniffle a bit and she would crumble. He knew it, she knew it, but Naruto wasn't going to take advantage of her like that. He idly wondered if she'd spoiled all her demigod children silly with how weak her defenses were, she probably had.

Agreeing with the goddess Naruto, blinked as she got up to leave, a door popping up right in front of her, as it creaked open. So stunned was the blond, that he only managed to call out when she was half way through the door. "Mom!?" the goddess paused, sticking her head out of the halfway shut door. "Yes Naruto?" she said curiously her eyes alight in inquiry. "What about the the third part?" Pandora giggled mischievously, her face a mixed expression of laughter, and a sly smile as she laughed at some unknown comedy.

"That's a secret!" was her call, as she shut the door behind her. The last thing he remembered before, he returned to the land of the living was, the distinct feeling of his eyebrow twitching uncontrollably.

Reality

He sat up straight, his hands rubbing the sleep from his eyes, out of habit. Glancing around the room he was momentarily confused. 'This isn't my dorm room…' Scanning the room, for a few minutes his memories of the past few days assaulted him.

Only for Pandora's parting words to echo in his head. Groaning he slumped in the comfy white chair. 'Pandora…' he cursed internally, would it kill her to give a straight answer? Her bright smile echoing through his head, along with her parting words.

'It's a secret!'

Of course, it's a secret yeah, that explains everything! Thought the Kusanagi sarcastically. Pushing himself out of the warm, comfortable chair, Naruto fought of a disgruntled sigh. What the chair was really soft, and comfortable! Some idle part of his mind was even plotting to abuse his new found authority, in order to have it moved into his dorm. But that is neither here nor their.

Stretching out his legs, he paused to brush of some imaginary dust before sneaking out of the room quiet as a mouse, as he made sure not to wake the still sleeping Olsson. Shutting the softly, he gave another yawn. 'To the library I go!' he thought cheerfully, he really did need to look up what his crazed, power hungry, delusional, god killing, adoptive siblings were doing.

He'd rather know what he was getting into than be surprised later, after all. Pulling out his-still singed- cell phone, Naruto was surprised to find he'd slept most of yesterday away. Heck he'd slept a good portion of today away too, considering it was 9:45 Am.

The Godslayer shrugged, before marching his way to the library.

Only stopping to grab a sandwich-well a sandwich platter... what? he was hungry!- on his way, he finally-with the help of dozens of servants-found the ever elusive library. Based upon how large the room was, he assumed someone had used some sort of magic to expand it.

It was somewhat breathtaking, row upon row upon of shelves filled with books of all kinds. While Naruto was no Librarian, he took pride in the fact that he could still see the beauty in such a large collection of human knowledge. Cracking his neck Naruto decided it was time to hit the books. Wandering through the aisles, he pulled off any tome that might have a reference to the current generation of Campione.

By the time he was satisfied, with his findings, his stack of books was well over his height, as it towered over some of the shorter shelves. Pulling a chair over to his pile of knowledge, he picked up one of the books, and called upon his magic.

Letting the Arcane energy flow through his, molding it as he cast the spell. In seconds he could feel the knowledge pierce his mind and assimilate almost instantly. It was however at this exact moment that Naruto decided, he probably wasn't going to use this spell all that often, and never on a fictional book.

It just felt wrong and so… foreign, as the knowledge was assimilated into his mind. Their was none of the sense of accomplishment that came with finishing a book, none of the excitement of reading a story, nor was their the satisfaction, of memorizing a fact.

It was so...so mechanical. Like someone decided randomly to chisel the entire fifth volume, of "Deities and their Heretics" into his mind, but did so with no emotion. Like they took every bit of pride contained within each word, and replaced every ounce of pride with a pound of apathy.

Another downer, was that he literally knew the entire book word for word, and he would never be able to forget it. Lets just say their was a lot of thing about Heretic gods he didn't want to know.(Why would anyone want to know that the heretic deity Aphrodite had killed over a hundred Campione using only pure sexual prowess?)

'Either way I don't think I'll be using that spell again anytime soon.'

Shrugging it off he pulled out a different book from his stack, and set to work. He spent hour after hour, flipping stale dust ridden pages with interest as he silently absorbed every word. Each book leaving him with, question after question, new curiosities breaking through with every page. Question like if he could pull ambrosia from his [Dragon's Hoard] Authority,(after testing it out he could safely say no to that) or what was wiping out the campione every few hundred years?

He even idly contemplated if he was going to live to his twenties, as it seemed, he had been reborn during a time with an almost unheard of amount of campione. The opportune time for whatever had been wiping Campione out for centuries to show it's face, don't you think?

On the subject of Campione, what he'd found was rather surprising. While the were only six living campione at the moment, over the last two hundred years over forty people had staked claim to the title. The thing was over half of them had died within 24 hours of ascension, and a fourth of the original amount had died within a week. Those remaining had either died within a year, or lived on to become the Campione of today.

Naruto groaned rubbing his tired eyes, refusing to read another word of the book. With it's Archaic take on old English, and rather biased views on just about everything he was surprised the book had lasted through the centuries without being set on fire, at least once. Rubbing his temples he closed his eyes, as to not burn the copy, of Truth and facts, of Devil kings.

'Pfft, more like how to shove a pole up your ass for dummies.' Shoving the book away as to not tempt himself, he climbed to his feet. Stretching his unused limbs, he gave out a satisfied groan. "Time to take a break!" Naruto cheered, his feet carrying him swiftly out of the library, as he shot out into the winter sun. Despite the somewhat chilly air, the Sixth King Reveled in the warmth the sun brought. Goose bumps rising on his skin at the conflicting feeling of cold air and warm light.

It was the clash, of metal, and clacking of sparks that snapped Naruto out of his sun warmed revelry. Naruto was vaguely familiar with the sound of blades clashing against each other. After all he'd originally attempted, training in swordsmanship until his Sensei, had proclaimed he had no skill, or even potential skill in any form of martial arts.

Over the years he'd accepted the fact that his original teacher had been an idiot, and not worth the money. After all he'd only been five and he'd never touched a weapon before, so of course he had no skill to speak of!

But that was unimportant, as he assessed his surroundings. He was in one of the many Courtyards of the Dragon shrine, and from what he could see this area had been cleaned up for the most part. A bit of rubble was still lying about but not to much, and in the center of the courtyard was a girl.

She was about his age-probably a year or so younger- with striking solid gold hair, with bright blue eyes, and a pair of nondescript earrings, hanging from her ears. A slim red winter jacket wrapping her form along with a pair of form fitting jeans. Some symbol that he didn't recognize shown proudly on her back as she danced around sword in hand.

She appeared to be sparring with an average boy, about twice her age… and she was taunting him. Her sword sending out sparks with each clash, seemingly bored, as her foot shot forward hooking behind the boys ankle, tripping him as she brought her blade to his throat.

Naruto Grinned out of excitement. He had quite a bit of energy to burn off after spending so long reading, and from what he could see of the group, they had a few spears ready for use.

After all what was the harm in a friendly spar?