"Do I really have to go? I think that you two can deal with it without me, I believe in you, you know?" Naruto hummed out with his eyes closed and his mouth whimpering.
"Are you serious? You're the only one who even knows those three. We're not qualified to relay that intel." Kiyomi leaned her head back.
"He's just feeling woozy about meeting his future self again…" Meiko chuckled.
"Wouldn't you be?" Naruto turned his jittery squint to Meiko. "Us interacting should be wrong on so many levels, you know…"
"I hope you're not worried about Seventh Naruto giving you germs and then eliminating both of you at the same time?" Kiyomi sighed.
"Ahh! That's exactly what I'm worried about, you know!" Naruto pointed his accusatory finger at Kiyomi. "How did you know?"
"I read minds for a living, forgot that?" Kiyomi loomed over Naruto, feeling her shady authority becoming like a fortified tower in front of the shriveling Jinchuuriki but then she let that intimidating façade crumbling by just waving her hand at it. "Just kidding, I've hung around with Meiko long enough to understand the ways in which simpler minds work."
"You've done nothing to answer my question, you charlatan for a leader, you know." Naruto hissed with another accusatory finger point. "I knew it. You don't know the answer to that paradox yourself!"
"The Seventh Naruto said not to worry about those sorts of things during the opening speech, that's good enough for me. That Shikamaru guy seemed like one of the brainy bunch and he had a whole scientific division behind him. One thing you learn on the field pretty soon is to trust your brainy guys…" Meiko shrugged.
"Guys, can you hurry up a little bit? There is a queue of people waiting to see us and there is an exam today you are trying not to be late for, isn't there?" the voice of the older Shikamaru from the universe that helped arranged this interuniversal and intertemporal event peeked through the door leading to the Hokage office.
The trio went through the proper etiquette procedure when confronting the Hokage, when prompted to ease up and report their problem, Kiyomi and Meiko both looked at Naruto with encouraging glares. The third member of the Team Hokage gulped and stepped out in front, visibly freaked out of being in the same room as his older version whereas he did not appear to display any similar freakiness over hanging out with his younger self whatsoever.
"For the record, our universes are not related in any time-related bonds. You don't need to worry about messing anything up by talking to me or the younger versions of you, you know." The Seventh Naruto smiled with the warm and boosting smile that was becoming his trademark.
"How is everyone reading my mind like that?" Naruto complained to himself before turning up the volume of his voice a bit. "We've got something troubling to report, you know. The exams might be in danger, no, this whole village even… Maybe…"
"If this is about the Akatsuki members you've encountered in the Training Grounds…" Sasuke spoke up. With shaky eyes, Naruto denied that notion before the future version of his friend that has gone rogue could finish.
"It's not about that. Whatever that's all about... We've met Orochimaru, Kabuto, and Sasuke, you know…" Naruto dropped the bombshell. "The other Sasuke…" he tried to clarify given how the adult Sasuke was looking at him with a bland expression.
"I got that much…" adult Sasuke verified.
"Who knows with you!? Who can ever know what you're thinking when your expression always stays the same, you know?!" Naruto pointed his finger at the adult version of the friend he had reunited with so recently.
"So someone from your universe who was not supposed to has hitched a ride?" the Seventh Hokage turned to Seventh Naruto. "Who is this Orochimaru, who is this Kabuto? Are they going to be a problem?"
"If they did slip into the roster of examinees and have been granted the usual adaptation treatment, they would be greatly powered up, compared to how you knew them. What did you report, one of the most powerful beings in your universe ate a chakra fruit? In this universe all fruits are chakra fruits, in case you forgot…" the Seventh's assistant turned to Seventh Naruto and his staff.
"Man, what a douchebag…" Seventh Naruto squinted in the same manner as his teen self used to when the troubling feeling deep down made him almost hunch over. "To think he'd ruin the exams like that…"
"You don't need to worry," adult Sasuke shook his head. "Orochimaru is smarter than to try and destroy this version of Konoha. He knows that even if he did eat a bunch of chakra food and has absorbed air, brimmed with chakra, and taken in sunlight radiating chakra, he'd stand no chance against a village that's comprised of ninja who have lived in such a universe their entire lives. He would be a nuisance for the village but he would never come close to eliminating it."
"But the Konoha Crush, you know…" Seventh Naruto scratched his chin. Despite the rogue Orochimaru being not from his own universe, the Seventh truly did appear troubled about his idea going wrong like that.
"The Konoha Crush was not enacted by Orochimaru alone. Here, in this instance, he is all by himself and his most immediate allies at that point in time – me and Kabuto. That suggests to me that he is here for one purpose only – the power of this universe." Adult Sasuke theorized. "He's going to leech the air, the food, the water, the sunlight for as much as he can and then go back home, intending to do whatever his chaotic mind pleases there."
"In that case, it will be up to you and the empowered genin from your universe to stop him…" The Lord Seventh, Uzumaki Midoben turned to the teenager version of Naruto.
"Wait, you mean he's going to keep the power he gains in this universe, you know?!" the younger Naruto freaked out. Right now so much responsibility was already on his shoulders, after seeing that his childish ramblings would soon be turned to reality through his persistence and effort. "Aren't you at all worried about the fact that a godlike Orochimaru would run rampant across our universe? What if he kills me and then you die, you know? What if he takes over Sasuke's body and then this Sasuke turns into Orochimaru overnight, you know?"
"For the last time," Shikamaru, the advisor of the Seventh, dragged his hand across his face. "What you're thinking about is time travel and it is impossible. You are different versions from different universes."
"I… I don't even…" Naruto got flustered over the fact of how deep his loss of words was in his current state of intellectual darkness and lack of understanding of the subject. Kiyomi could not blame him, she herself could barely comprehend the finer details behind the technology and the entire planning of the event so she just stayed quiet and put trust into her superiors, something the criminals she had met in her life were unable to do.
"Roll over the blackboard…" the Seventh Midoben instructed with a hand gesture, after a deep-seated sigh, Shikamaru walked up to a blackboard with a bunch of circles and mathematical formula scribbled onto it and then rolled over the blackboard, revealing an even more hectic bunch of notes on the other side, already prepared in advance for those raising questions about the event, just like Naruto was doing right now.
"You see, different universes exist. That is the fundamental truth. An infinite number of them exists, in fact." Shikamaru began by pointing at all the different circles across the board. "That means that there is an infinite array of possible changes in each universe. Some of the universes might exist and be developed at an earlier point in time and otherwise be either the exact same or radically different. That is where you and other earlier versions of us come from. You are in no way related to any other universe but your own. The fact that you are a younger version of Lord Seventh… Naruto Lord Seventh… Only means that your universe has started a bit later than ours and is now at an earlier point of development. You are not my Naruto-san's younger self, meaning that if you died, nothing would change for us, essentially."
"Don't get too worked up about it, you know, the details still baffle me too…" Seventh Naruto grinned with a shy expression of joy. "Shikamaru just pitched the idea to me, given how we have worked with the technology left to us by those alien guys and I thought the idea of interuniversal Chuunin Exams was pretty cool, you know!"
"It is pretty cool…" his younger self agreed with a sprinkle of submission.
"Plus, you should feel easier when you realize that your Orochimaru will not retain this power forever,' adult Sasuke declared. "Without the steady supply of chakra sources empowering him, as the ninja in this universe are being empowered, he will slowly lose his power as he is using it. Using this new power in a universe devoid of this richness in chakra will be his downfall, ultimately. Same goes for you."
That was good, Kiyomi breathed out easier. After the way Shikamaru explained it before, she was almost ready to believe that the Seventh Naruto was willing to doom a bunch of universes for potential catastrophe just for the sake of a fun and kickass event, returning a bunch of genin back home with what would seem like godlike power… Shikamaru did not do a good enough job at selling if anyone cared about the integrity of the participating universes and their fate after the exams whatsoever.
"I still don't like the idea of a Sannin running around, posing as a genin." Uzumaki Midoben sulked. It was rare to see Lord Seventh this grim. Most of the time the man acted more aloof and was willing to go along with the flow of what came his way.
"We can postpone the exams, I suppose we could cancel them. However, have in mind that Orochimaru will not risk exposing himself. He wants to stay here for as long as possible. We've not picked him up yet on any of your sensory barriers, meaning that he's not displayed a chakra level that your own genin would not be able to replicate. Moreover, he is teamed up with two legitimate genin." Sasuke brought up.
"That's right, you know…" Seventh Naruto hummed out. "Four-eyes did take part in the Chuunin Exams before and quit before he could dig into it proper. Sasuke's still at the rank of genin."
"The opportunity remains that the Kabuto and Sasuke of their universe are different. Perhaps their Sasuke ranked up whereas yours may have failed. Maybe their Kabuto is more than the Kabuto you remember? I'm on the side of postponing the exams and dealing with the immediate threat." Shikamaru suggested, judging from the broken façade of gloom in the eyes of Lord Seventh, the idea that Naruto's own advisor would oppose his call almost seemed enough to convince Hokage Midoben.
"What do you two think?" Midoben looked up at Kiyomi and Meiko. "Did the power of this Orochimaru seemed out of this world?"
Kiyomi stepped up. Naruto turned at her with a worried expression. It would not have been too much of a stretch to claim that the young man who would in the future become the Seventh Hokage has resigned himself to yet another failure in the exams.
"With all due respect, Lord Seventh. I'd rather die than miss or fail another Chuunin Exams. You asked if the power of Orochimaru scared me, in a way it did. Enough so to forget my nindo but right now I'm itching for a chance to kill him myself. He's not a genin, he's fair game, right?" Kiyomi looked up making Naruto's eyes widen and his jaw drop.
"No offense, but it was not your strength that frightened me. It was how quickly it went from absolute speck of dust to something notable. I'm sure this Orochimaru is trouble, which just gives me all the more reason to find him and kill him this time." Kiyomi declared. Even Meiko looked confused to Kiyomi's adamant decision to not only ask the Hokage to continue the Chuunin Exams but also to actively get in Orochimaru's way herself.
"I see…" Hokage Midoben sighed. With a subtle hint of a smirk, he looked up to Meiko. "The Chuunin Exams are all about the trio of a team though…"
Meiko clanged her heels together as her back straightened out and stiffened up. "Mana kicked the ass of Guru Ayushi. That's a crime, I suppose but to claim that isn't out of this world would be to lie. Frankly, I don't feel that far behind her, no, in fact, I'd say the only way in which she is still ahead of us is the experience of fighting in that world. It isn't Orochimaru that frightens me, it's the fact that I won't upstage Mana before she leaves prison and puts the resolve that toppled Guru Ayushi to use in saving the world again."
"B-But he swiped me and Kyuubi aside, you know… Like nothing." Naruto stepped up to object.
"I've faced the Kyuubi already. Not the one inside you but the one of our world." Meiko matched Naruto's eyes with her own. "Sure, it was half-dead then but I'm no longer that same person either. Hell, with genin making up most of our challenge, we could use a bit of chaos in the mix."
"Well… I see that Konoha ninja don't change too much even in this far-off corner of the Omniverse." Sasuke smirked.
"Did that reply remind you of something, Sasuke?" Seventh Naruto smiled while looking at his lifelong friend, reminiscing of times so far behind them that they seemed ancient.
"Let's just hope that meeting Orochimaru won't end the same way for these three as it did for the one giving that reply," Sasuke replied with a softened expression. Nostalgia tended to soften up even the biggest stiffs.
"Alright then, for now, the Chuunin Exams will continue. You three are excused. I believe you've got places to be in quite soon." Hokage Midoben nodded. His face turned bitter at the mention of Mana from Meiko's lips before and the favorable context in which the magician was referred to and that bitterness did not fade until the Team Hokage last saw the man before the door to his office closed.
"Hmm… Where did this structure come from, you know…?" Naruto scratched his head while squinting his eyes in confusion. The youth had a tendency to squint almost to the point of closing when the enigma in front of him proved to be challenging enough to become the source of a notable migraine.
The Jinchuuriki was referring to a grand cube-shaped building that surpassed the surrounding buildings at least twice and appeared by itself to be comprised of fist-sized black and white cubes that looked like the mixture of plastic and steel in texture. When the three of Team Hokage approached the center of the structure that the main street led to, the building parted with the black and white cubes twisting and shuffling out of their way.
"With that tech on their hands, Shikamaru and his science goons could have found all sorts of weird stuff over the Omniverse…" Kiyomi wondered if that was the answer to her teammate's question.
"It's a cube… Comprised of smaller cubes!" Meiko drooled over every smallest element of the grand structure. Kiyomi sighed and let herself tap the floor underneath with an impatient clap of her sandals onto the cube floor.
"This might take a while…" the Yamanaka turned to Naruto.
"I don't know if I can stand to wait any longer, you know!" Naruto flipped out. "Didn't you say that the first test will most likely be some sort of mind-bender, you know?"
"It will." Kiyomi nodded. Noting the fact that Team Hokage did not have the luxury of waiting any longer, she grabbed Meiko by the hand and began dragging her entranced teammate further.
A decent handful of teams were already gathered in the cube's inner room. Alongside there were a few familiar faces: Team Fir with a newbie in their midst – a mean-looking fellow in a flamboyant, dark hairdo, a handful of which rested in a squeezed ponytail behind him, Team Hawthorn alongside a curious, red-haired boy with a facial tattoo and a gourd on his back, the entirety of Teams Walnut and Pine. Letting her eyes pass through Lithia Uchiha and Tanko Shigin pissed Kiyomi off far less than she thought it would.
"Man, this whole place looks the same, this room is just the same as the one we came from, you know…" Naruto complained with his bemused squint, his lips pouted and hands wrapped over his chest.
"No. Can't you see the configuration of the cubes is all different?" Meiko turned to Naruto with a fun-poking expression.
"I thought you were on my side on these mental tests being a load of baloney…" Naruto sighed, shriveling into a pathetic hunch. It was safe to say that Team Hokage spirits weren't all that high.
"Teams Cirrus, Cumulus, and Stratus are here too. Nimbus and Alto… Don't quite know those guys but they must be from the last Chuunin Exams too. They're too old to be fresh meat." Kiyomi mumbled all to herself. Her head tried to run through a refresher course of all the different ninja that Team Hokage had encountered and all the intelligence they have gathered during the information trading process of the Forest of Death stage during the last Chuunin Exams. This time, not only were there those guys to worry about once more, powered up over the multiple years of work, but also all the ninja from different universes as well.
A sublime, plastic shuffling sound attracted the present ninja to all look up at the same time and acknowledge the descending proctors of the Chuunin Exams. The black and white cubes provided a lifelike platform that responded to the whims of the staff. Overseeing this stage was a jounin that Kiyomi had seen before, Musha may have been her name… Accompanying her was some tall and intimidating fellow that did not allow himself the luxury of wearing a standard Konoha uniform, he wore a dark trench coat over a dark bodysuit and a bandana. His face looked flattened. Not naturally flat, just smacked by someone or something until it looked like a mug that a brick had flattened.
"Welcome to the first stage. My name is Morino Ibiki, this is Boryoko Musha, as of now, The Interuniversal Chuunin Exams have officially begun!" the flat-faced proctor declared with a booming and authoritative voice that would have made both the most defiant as well as the most immature bend to the man's will and listen all the same.
Author's Note: Just wanted to leave a couple of notes here about some of the fresher reviews as well as do some usual yelling at the TV that I do here...
Anyway, there was this guy in the reviews section who was reviewing from a guest account so I couldn't give him the usual PM "thank you" for taking the time to check out my ramble of a story and taking the extra time to review. Not sure if I've already lost him with the way this story goes and how exhausting it might get but... Seriously, to the "Guy in Pajamas", you're great, sorry I couldn't have scribbled anything earlier. Seeing how somebody reacts to my earlier chapters and how someone unfamiliar with the wheel I'm inventing here feels about the story almost beat-per-beat is always an invaluable experience, even if it's entirely negative, and I've been fortunate enough to provide you with at least a few moments of entertainment and for that I truly am glad.
Also, someone wondered why I haven't written a book yet. Funny story, I actually am working on one (while also working on this, while also working on DB: Paradise Lost, while also maintaining an exhausting full-time job, which is why I'm just co-authoring it). Writing professionally has never been something I intended to do seriously because I just don't feel like I'm good enough to demand satisfaction of any sort for what I do. I believe that if you put yourself out there and then take people's money for it, you've got to make sure it's pristine and that it's something that sticks out from the rest and I just never felt like I've been on that level, or that I'll ever reach it even, however, my co-author thinks differently so I'm willing to at least participate in making something out of it.
I'm not sure if anybody cares about the book I'm working on, once it is done, I'll definitely stuff all of my other works with links to it and it will definitely be available for free (at least for a while). It's going to be something a lot different from Tales of a Ninja Magician so I don't feel all that comfortable discussing it here, though, I suppose I might leak some details if literally, anybody shows interest.
As for the current arc of the story, I guess the Chuunin Exams have started again. I kind of wanted to beat around the bush a little bit more, sprinkle in a few more threads that the arc would be unraveling from this point on as I kind of wanted this arc to be a little bit more than a means to an endpoint, still, I tried that with the last Chuunin Exams arc, tried to give every single one of my 100+ OCs something to say or do just to show them off even the tiniest bit but it escalated way out of proportion so to prevent a 100+ chapter sized tournament arc I had to pace it for once.
Sometimes all you need to fly is to kick yourself in the behind hard enough...