"Alright, Shikamaru, let them through, you know!" Naruto messaged his ally through the communicator device that the interdimensional visitors have brought along.
A round hole widened in the very fabric of existence, no glow or light show, in a lot of ways it looked just as if somebody had busted through a wall and the only things seen through the two sides was what the other side looked like. Meiko made her way closer to the rift, just so she could see the other Konoha a bit closer.
"It looked so bright and…" Kiyomi struggled to find the word once her friend returned.
"Yeah, just how much time did they have to keep building things?" Meiko wondered. "This rift looks nothing like when Mana got turned inside out and then sucked into another universe."
"I'm glad they're the ones coming here and not the other way around…" Kiyomi leaned back with disgust just trying to imagine the sheer discomfort of traveling to another universe. If it was all like what her friend made it out to be, Mana was to be respected for making the trip twice.
Children and young adults alike began flocking from the other side, had it not been for the confused faces of the locals gathering to watch what they thought to be a great light show but seeing something far too visually underwhelming to be what it was, all of this assembly would have looked like an invasion.
"Hey, look, that kid kind of looks like the Seventh… The other one…" Meiko pointed at a tiny version of Naruto with far wilder hair, a black and pink tracksuit, and a Konoha forehead protector. Something not all of the incoming ninja wore and showed off with as much pride as this youngling.
"Hmph, what a reject universe… Where are all their Uchiha?" a familiar voice carried with a flair of self-importance distracted Kiyomi as she turned to face her nemesis.
"Lithia…" Kiyomi stated with disdain.
"I'm not letting you out of my sight this time. I'll make sure to kick you out of the contest even if I don't have to." Lithia stated with the tips of her lips moving up a notch but overall looking too cool to put in the effort and smile.
"So mean. We should at least put the interests of our universe first, then there's a matter of different countries… That's just petty." Meiko lectured the petite Uchiha girl.
"Then again, there's still the matter of there only being the two of you, it's unlikely they will even let you in on the exam action…" Inuzuka Kidenshi displayed his fangs, hanging nearby Lithia at all times. Given how often the two were at each other's throats, it was an odd habit for the two to adopt.
Kiyomi looked away. She hated Lithia's team of all people having her number this way but Kidenshi was right, even if he was just messing around. Unlike his comrade, his beef with Kiyomi and Meiko was nothing personal, nothing extending father than the little match they very nearly ended up having in the Forest of Death.
"It's so odd, Lord Seventh is making it a whole thing about letting in a bunch of people from different universes and timelines but I don't think anyone from a different village has ever arrived." Kiyomi noticed.
"Odd or sad?" Kidenshi sighed, finally holding his snarky side down for a beat. "These guys come from all sorts of countries. Look at that…" the Inuzuka pointed at Boruto engaging in conversation with a young man wearing a Kirigakure headband.
"Yep, different universe alright…" Meiko nodded.
"So you guys going to catch something to eat after this whole thing or what?" Chominu, the third member of Team Walnut wondered.
"Yeah, definitely that." Meiko pointed her index at the looming Akimichi behind her with vigor which implied that the redhead was ready to sell friend and foe alike for this person she was pointing at.
"So where are the Team Fir guys?" Tanko Shigin pressed his lips together. For somebody who got punched out as far away as away went and roamed the empty black for nine whole months before managing to make his way back home, the young man looked incredibly chipper and mental-trauma-free.
"Training. Not much has changed with those three…" Kiyomi said. The blonde sighed, drawing the breath in as deep as it went before taking a slurp of her soda. The inheritor of the Yamanaka clan looked about as overjoyed about the get-together as someone who's walked eleven thousand miles with a pebble in their shoe.
"Yushijin got promoted, didn't he? He's still pushing those two around? Unbelievable…" Meiko whistled.
Deiji Daidao, the Jinchuuriki of the Five-Tails, picked at the noodles with his chopsticks before lifting them halfway to his mouth, remembering he was still wearing his mask and then giving up. Exposure of his face must not have been worth the ramen and the ramen was sublime in this joint. Said a lot about the chum.
"So, you two broke out of prison again? It's gonna be fun!" Kidenshi lifted his fist up, sounding overjoyed with the prospect of seeing Daidao and Nanaba, the two Jinchuuriki still under Konoha's management in action. The two were both an impressive pair of combatants as well as a wall to overcome. While facing either of the duos would have been frightening due to their absurd chakra levels, besting a Jichuuriki would have granted major bragging rights.
"Are you some sort of an idiot?" Lithia raised an eyebrow. "Haven't you heard about the Eden break-out? They clearly escaped while the bricks on the road were hot."
Kiyomi had to hand it, she did not expect Lithia caring enough to sit by a common table with the rest of the Konoha genin crew. That showed major improvement in her social skills, though the jury was still out on if that was a good thing or not. On one hand, it showed promise that one day the Lolita-styled Uchiha would become more stomach-able, on the other, it also meant that she'd be spotted in much more get-togethers and therefore the Lithia exposure ratio would skyrocket…
"We were always free to leave," Daidao explained with his mechanical voice. "We are one member short though…"
"You could join us. We're a member short too." Meiko shot her fist out.
"Excuse me, and what am I to do then?" Nanaba hurled lightning bolts with her stare. Ones that faded away and weakened after the immediate sentiment rot.
"There are a lot of two-man teams now, huh?" Juhi wondered. Ever since her role in the war against the Monster Honda, the Aburame wore some black head garb that only left her face uncovered. Kiyomi did not snoop around but she just assumed that the fun-loving member of a clan that was not known for its fun-loving people took some nasty and life-altering bumps that required wearing this garb. Something rubbery but durable to offer additional protection to her neck and brain.
"Team Hokage, Team Fir, Team Hawthorn, Team Pine… Shit, I think Team Walnut's the only team left intact since the last exams." Tohi Jomya remarked. The young woman also donned a pair of accessories over her neck and the joints near her knees and elbows that looked suspiciously like braces, showing that she was also not immune to life-altering injuries on the field.
"Team Hickory's…" Chominu kept staring at a blank point with his eyes as squinted as ever, making it near impossible to tell what it was that he was looking at or what it was that he was thinking. He did not finish that sentence, thank God he had the decency to not finish that sentence with so many genin who were there present.
"Anyway, it's gonna be really fun, seeing the Team Draft develop!" Kidenshi tried brightening up the mood by bringing in some moderate sip of hype. "Imagine the betrayals, the new friendships, I can hardly wait."
"Are you whoring yourself out there?" Lithia closed her eyes, locked her arms over her chest and looked away. "That would be so you…"
Kidenshi chuckled. His laughter seemed oddly melancholic, taking the sold out table back to a few moments ago when they all were thinking of the friends lost along the way. "Maybe a few years ago I would have. We used to fight on our own all the time because we couldn't stand each other, I don't think we've ever thanked Mana for this…"
The room again went silent with the mention of Mana. The deadly silence got broken up by incoming voices. Two of them appeared to be nearly identical and displayed a nasty tendency to yell over one another. Once the trio of approaching ninja entered the Ichiraku Ramen, they died out with silence, the genin table of the local universe glared back at the aliens.
The fact that there were two identical copies of Naruto from two different points in the timeline just emphasized how weird this all was. Kiyomi did not recall hearing an explanation from Shikamaru or Hokage Naruto about how exactly they ran into the technology capable of this, even if she did somewhat revel in the idea of another supermassive Chuunin Exams.
"Wow, Ichiraku Ramen's even cooler in this place!" the kid Naruto yelled out. "It's so large!"
"You are but a mere grasshopper, you do not judge the quality of a ramen joint by the size of it, you judge it by the tenderness of its soup and the integrity of their noodles." An Akimichi boy in a green shirt, roughly the same age as the child Naruto licked his index and pointed it upward, feeling up the atmosphere of the facility. "Thirty-four degrees. A heated atmosphere but it is the heat of a passionate atmosphere!" the Akimichi appeared ecstatic about his findings.
"Hey, we've got a couple of seats open." Kidenshi lifted his hand up, inviting the visitors from another universe, amongst which were two versions of Naruto, besides the one that organized the whole thing, as if it was something one was to see when eating out on a Tuesday.
"Thanks!" the kid Naruto got excited and looked ready to become Kidenshi's best friend for life. "This universe's Kiba is just as cool as ours, you know!"
"That's not how different universe's work, you know that this guy and Kiba have no relation to each other, right? He's not like you and me at all, you know." The older Naruto looked frustrated with the naivete of his younger self but more so in a way in which a parent would have been frustrated by their child. Frustration with a hint of softness shining through from underneath.
"Whatever, he's treating us to ramen, that's good enough for me, you know!" the kid Naruto yelled out, it seemed like that was a trend with this guy as Kiyomi had not heard him communicate in any other way. The other one was a mystery though, he seemed somewhere in between this loudmouth and the mature man that she had met in Lord Seventh's office.
"That's not even what I…" Kidenshi was about to object but Nanaba pat him on the shoulder in an attempt to comfort him about the inevitable bleeding his wallet was about to undergo.
"Older Naruto, aren't you coming?" kid Choji looked back at the older Naruto with confusion, it was easy to understand that the experience of meeting this more matured version of what this Akimichi boy took for a loudmouth dweeb was a new experience to him as well.
"Yeah… Yeah, I'm coming it's just…" Naruto looked on outside as if he was missing something or having a nasty feeling about something but then he closed his eyes, sighed and approached the table. "Don't hog all the space, you know." He growled smacking his younger version with his older buttocks to shove him aside lightly.
"The new experiences are too overwhelming?" Kiyomi wondered. She was not yet sure what she was supposed to take and what she was supposed to give these interuniversal ninja, technically, they were still Konoha ninja so the Will of Fire still connected all of them but… All of this was way too weird on a multitude of levels.
"In a way…" Naruto agreed before a teen-aged waitress approached to take his order. Something appeared to be lost in the eyes of the young man as he ordered. He sighed after the waitress left. "I miss the old man and Ayame from back home, you know."
"Awww, don't be such a downer, you know!" his kid version smacked the older Naruto in the back. "I swear, ever since you met Sasuke you've been acting so weird…"
"You haven't even told us why…" Choji wondered with a mouthful of noodles. The speed at which these new entrants were served was impressive but ramen always was sort of a favored fast food type of the village. It took about as long to make as it took for the water to boil.
"I'm not sure I can…" the older Naruto shook his head, his eyes looked lost. "Not sure about a whole lot of things since I've come here, you know."
"You remember what the Hokage me instructed, you know? Eat up, don't get into any fights, don't be afraid to talk to each other, this isn't like those dumb time travel manga." Younger Naruto explained. Seeing the kid shine with this odd aura of kindness while sounding like such a delinquent seemed to clash impressions but the same bratty nature gave Naruto the shade of approachable simplicity that made him easy to like.
Kiyomi knew why this kid made it to being the Hokage.
"I see…" Daidao scratched his mask, emitting a leathery rubbing sound as he did so. "So there are going to be no time paradoxes if the older Naruto reveals something about his future. Also, I'd rather you did not mock the glorious genre of science fiction in front of my face, or you will be upsetting your Hokage very much by having a fight on your hands."
"Calm down, Dai." Nanaba tried pacifying the situation even if Daidao did not show any serious intent of fighting the kid, he was just letting him know he very much fancied those "dumb time travel manga". "We are also under the orders not to fight any of these guests until the Chuunin Exams start."
"I wonder why that is, don't you guys need some training and warming up before the Exams? Not being able to spar puts you at a disadvantage." Kidenshi wondered.
"I know why that is." Meiko cleared her throat. She could recall it from Mana's story. "The ninja from the other universes are weaker than us. Vastly so. But it is not inherent, they're weaker because whereas in their universe chakra hails from some fruit, our entire universe is made of chakra. Eating an apple in our universe would be the equivalent of eating that mystical chakra fruit in theirs."
"Huh… So that's why we can't brawl it out until we eat up and live here a little, you know." Kid Naruto squinted. He did not look like he got the entire explanation all at once but the parts he did understand seemed to paint him the full picture bit by bit.
"Well, I guess, in that case, nobody will mind if I go for seconds, thirds and fourths!" Choji cheered for himself, letting his hand shoot out into the air while he called for more food.
"Ummm… Please don't…" Kidenshi raised his index finger, looking somewhat defeated and crushed under the realization that he would be paying for said seconds, thirds and fourths.
"This Sasuke, he's a valued asset to you, isn't he?" Lithia wondered. Kiyomi noticed that the older Naruto sort of skipped over Lithia when letting his eyes wander across the Ichiraku, this Sasuke person that caused great inner wounds inside this youth to bleed anew must have been an Uchiha. It seemed like those guys caused trouble for everybody.
"A friend." Both Naruto replied at the same time.
"His Sasuke is sort of a douchebag, you know. I thought that he was beginning to warm up to me and Sakura, you know, but his Sasuke looks just like how he was in the beginning. All smug and in a need of a good punch in the face, you know!" kid Naruto punched his own palm while avoiding a disaster of dropping his entire bowl by a narrow margin.
"He went rogue, you know." Older Naruto finally said what he was holding suppressed in fear that he'd cause something in the past to change when his younger self returned home with his own, still loyal version of Sasuke. "I can't understand what I'm supposed to feel now. I see an older version of me where Sasuke and I are friends again, closer than brothers, you know. I see the Sasuke I know and will never stop fighting to save, acting just like I remember him, even though he might not be the Sasuke from my universe, for all I know. Then I see the Sasuke seemingly right before he committed to running away from us. I can't understand if I should feel glad that things work out in the end or if I should try and talk to him before he goes rogue, you know."
"I do know," Kiyomi muttered. "Meiko and I sort of know about friends we should have reached out to before they made some mistakes. Sometimes it's for the best to let them deal with their own darkness all on their own and respect their ability to do so."
"Yes. It is as your Lord Seventh stated, there is an infinite version of universes for each passing possibility. The Lord Seventh that approached us with this event might not even be the same Naruto that met Mana during her adventure, to begin with, just one that has experienced that event with a different version of Mana. It appears that time and our respective histories are free to change and mold as we like, without any effect on the grander scale. Some would say that makes us not matter because nothing we do will affect anything but the fate of an irrelevant part of the greater infinity but I think it's amazing, it shows how much freedom we have with our own actions. The world and time itself are for us to shape as all of us please." Deiji explained in his mechanical-sounding voice.
"Can we just not talk about this anymore?" Tanko Shigin grabbed his head and squeezed hard on it in scorn of the migraine that all this meaningless philosophical banter was causing him.
"Hmph, it seems we've found a weakness to the so-called invulnerable genin after all…" Lithia scowled at the numb-skulled colleague of hers, one that she, most likely, in her own signature fashion, considered a mere asset on her journey to ascension in rank.
A few of the present genin chuckled at that remark, even Shigin himself cracked a shy grin.
"Hmm? What's the matter? You've had that weirdest long face the whole evening…" Meiko stated, looking at Kiyomi when the other genin had left home or for one last trip to the training grounds to work off those full bellies.
"We need a third member." Kiyomi sighed. "I can't believe we forgot about that part, it's not a recent development, Mana's been promoted for over three years now."
A lanky, young man donning a worn out tracksuit of a shade of burgundy and spiky, dark hair sat down by the two young women and raised his hand up as a gesture of introduction. "Hi, I'm Gwido." He muttered.
