A/N: I genuinely cannot believe that I'm motivating myself to write even something like this again. What's happening to me. Am I being productive? Jesus, I need to get tested, that's contagious. People die from getting shit done, I don't wanna put that on somebody else.

Chapter 3: A Series of Unfortunate Events

"And I thought your eating habits were bad," Kazu said numbly as he watched the man named Uzumaki Naruto gulp down cup after cup of instant ramen noodles. He'd woken up that day expecting a day at the beach later on with his lovely girlfriend on a rare day off. All that he'd wanted to do was catch up with his best friend and bring her some snacks before taking in the sun, a gentle ocean breeze on his skin, with the sound of children playing in the distance under his favorite umbrella.

And yet he found himself manning an electric kettle to keep hot water flowing and warming the next batch of cups to be prepared. "Those were the last of my stash," Lily said in a tone that was barely a whimper. "He's eating all of my junk food." Lily reached up and grabbed the hem of his short sleeve. "All of it. Where is it even going? I'm scared, Kazu."

"I tried to warn you. Bad things would happen if you kept at this." Lily took her snacking very seriously.

Naruto had surrounded himself with a veritable fortress of upended Styrofoam and paper cups as he tore through the production line. Outside of people who had Quirks that gave them huge mouths or jaws that could unhinge, she had never seen somebody eat quite as much food so quickly as Naruto was managing now. It was less that he ate the noodles, and more he was introducing them to his gullet and washing them down with the broth.

And the sounds he was making as he ate was frightening as well. Slurps, burps, moans and groans of delight as Naruto consumed all that was put before him. "How many is that now?" Lily asked.

"Thirty-six. and we're down to the two in front of him yet and these last ten. And I honestly don't think he'll stop with these."

"My stash."

"There there," Kazu said. "If it makes you feel better, I'm not convinced I'm awake right now." He dodged on reflex as Lily reached up to pinch him. "Ha."

"Boooooooorrrrrrrpppp." A thunderous resonance filled the bunker as a mighty burp was blasted by the blond. He paused to wiped around his mouth with a towel and take a swig from a bottle of ginger ale. "Whew! Sorry! Say, this is pretty good for instant, you're going to have to tell me where to get these before I leave so I can bring some with me." He covered his mouth to muffle a few more smaller belches, before putting a hand on his belly and leaning back with a grin.

"Those were all of my snacks," Lily whined again. "This better be worth it."

"It will be," Kazu assured her.

"I meant financially," she snapped. "Do you have any idea how expensive Dokku-Poko ramen is? That was my 'end of the world' box that I carry on extended stays. Even I haven't dug into it in three weeks."

"I'm sure the boss will expense it once we explain what's going on," he said. "And besides, I know damn well you have two more variety boxes just like those at home. Don't play the victim with me."

With a satisfied pat of his belly, Naruto leaned back and took a few dozen deep breaths. He had found his Temple once again. "I don't think I've been this happy to see ramen since the last time I died," he said with a lazy grin after a few more belches.

"Well, plenty more where that came from," Lily said with a forced smile. She and Kazu took their seats across from him and watched as he began stacking discarded cups and lids for disposal.

She glanced in the corner at a cast-aside white hand towel covered in Naruto's blood. "How do you feel now?"

As soon as he had given that grandiose little speech about his titles and name, the shining blue ball in his hand had sputtered and popped with a flash and a bang. The blowback avoided them, but his head was knocked backwards by the concussive blast from his palm, knocking a spatter of blood from his lips and nose onto the wall and ceiling around him. Golden shards flung into the air from his face, prismatic embers dashing away to show the fractured body below.

He slowly leaned his head forward, face amask with a wet red curtain, charred skin, muscle exposed to the air, and what looked like and orbital socket on the upper edge of his cheek. He touched his face with trembling fingertips and looked at the stains with mild curiosity. "I... need a lot of ramen, I think," he said as if this were a common occurrence for him, or at least frequent enough that he had a protocol. "Oh. This is not good." He waved a hand in front of his face experimentally "Hey," he said playfully. "Who turned out the lights?" He playfully bonked his head while screwing his face up, then yelped in pain.

Lily sat numbly at the display before her. She was no longer "in over her head", she had long graduated to "being throw into the hole."

"Lily!" Kazu snapped. "Snacks! Go!"

As if on autopilot, she gathered bags of cookies and crackers and anything else that seemed vaguely nutritious, while Kazu mopped up at Naruto's face with a towel hanging on a hook nearby. "How bad is it?" Kazu asked him with greater tenderness than Naruto would have expected. His eyes had shifted color once again to a light green; now that he could see what was underneath the "black box energy" or "Chakra" or whatever, he could get a closer look at flesh and blood, as it were. "How are you alive?" he asked seriously. "Lily told me about the conversation you had when you showed up at the bridge. You said that you were pretty banged up, but she thought you looked okay up until you passed out. Explain to me in simple terms what's going on so I can help."

Naruto blinked at the earnest inquiry. "It's the only thing keeping me together," he replied after a moment. "Something really, really bad must have happened to me for me to do this to myself. My body is fried. This 'chakra cloak' that I've somehow managed to weave is a cheap knockoff compared to the real thing." He lightly tapped his belly with his knuckles. "It's connected to my life force. I don't have time to explain now." He spun a finger toward his face. "See this? I'm like this all up in here, and my body doesn't have the resources to heal itself right now."

"You mean you were on life support this whole time?" Kazu asked.

Naruto grimaced. "Yeah. I was basically dead until I woke up. The shroud put me in a state of 'can't get worse than this' until I was able to cobble together the energy to get unburied."

"And that ball? Doing that broke your nightlight?"

Naruto laughed at that, then nearly sobbed from the pain. "Something like that is usually- hrrng -on the low end for me. I didn't expect to crack myself in half again this soon."

"I swear, yer more trouble than yer worth," Kazu grumbled.

Lily rushed back with an armful of junk food from a cupboard near the door. "What do you like?" she asked as she dropped the loot onto her cot.

"Start with anything with sugar and carbs," Naruto said. "I need brain food first. Shovel it in. Noodles. Ramen. Whatever you got. That's the source of... my..." His head began to loll to the side, and as he fell forward onto Kazu's obnoxious Hawaiian shirt, Naruto was clearly passing out. "...power."

"...DON'T JUST STAND THERE, WOMAN!" Kazu shouted while he held Naruto's upper body weight in his arms. "GIVE THE MAN A COOKIE!"

..."Much better now, thank you," Naruto said. "I'm stuffed! I'd keep on going, but I don't want to overeat right now. Trust me, you do not want to see what Uzumaki indigestion sounds like."

"...Sounds?" Kazu cautiously queried.

"You'll fear for your own life," Naruto deadpanned. "I have it on good authority that the best description of the noises I make when I eat a platter of chicken is 'Paleolithic', or so I've been told."

Kazu waved a hand at the remaining entrees. "So you're done for now?"

Naruto nodded his head. "Yeah, I topped off the tank as much as I should go. Help yourselves!"

"How generous," Lily mumbled as she picked up a very good beef soy ramen cup and a clean pair of disposable chopsticks. "Being traumatized works up my appetite." She raised some noodles toward her mouth, but before she began to slurp them down, she glowered over them at Naruto. "Start talking," she said flatly. "You said about ten things that I couldn't even begin to understand, and frankly, I don't think I want to." She frowned in thought for a moment before she continued. "However. I am emotionally numb right now. Any more shocking revelations might not be the best for me, but I don't see how my day could get any worse than it already has. Kazu?"

The grey goblin man looked down at his now-bloodstained shirt and somehow managed to keep his composure. "Get it over with," he said with a vague wave of his hand.

"Everything is going to be fine," Naruto reassured them. He'd settled back into crossed legs and hands in his laps like a yogi about to start a meditative session. "Please don't freak out. It's a lot to take in, which is pretty much why I try to avoid these conversations when possible. But the truth is, if I had fallen to Earth and someone else had picked me up after all that, I don't know if I could have survived long enough when I came to under similar circumstances. If I had been imprisoned underground, for instance, I would have eventually done something big to get out of there, and I doubt that they would have given me so much to eat to replenish my strength."

To their surprise, he bowed from the waist and held his hands together above his head in supplication. "Regardless of the circumstances, I woke up in your care and you may have saved this life." He spread his hands and rose his head to meet their gaze. "You have no idea the debt that I owe you, Santiago Lily, Imahara Kazu, or what it means to me that you kept me safe. I'll explain everything in due time, promise, but I need to ask a few questions." He held a pointer finger up to stall a protest. "I need information as much as you do, guys," he chided. His expression turned serious. "You were scared of me earlier," he went on. "You thought that I might be working for someone or something named All for One. Based on your reactions, even being suspected of being associated with them twigs you out."

"You gotta be pulling our leg," Kazu said. "There's no way you came from-" He shook his head at the absurdity.

Naruto sighed. This wasn't an uncommon reaction when infodumps like this were dropped on random natives that he came across. Technically speaking, he really shouldn't be telling them any of this, but what was the harm? "Nope. No point in lying to you guys." He nodded toward the porthole. "Listen, man, you've had a rough day already. You got plans, I know. Why don't you go get cleaned up, go on your date, yeah?"

Kazu rolled his eyes. "I cancelled ten minutes ago when I was playing Iron Chef for ya," he said flatly. "Besides. Not like I'll need less liquor tonight if I stick around for the story."

Fair.

"I'll handle this," Lily said to her friend. "I don't know how much of what you just said I should take at your word," she said cautiously. "I want to trust you. I don't have any particular reason not to, and it's not like any of this isn't public information. But before I go on about All for One... How the hell don't you know what a Quirk is?"

Naruto waved a palm toward Kazu. "I assume it's some kind of genetic mutation that gives normal people superhuman abilities, am I right?"

She nodded slowly. He talked as if this was something he'd seen before. "Yes. Quirks are... damn, never expected to have to actually explain this stuff to an adult. This is kindergarten stuff. See, most people these days are born with one. Call them superpowers, meta abilities, the definition and translation in different cultures around the world differ somewhat depending on where you are, but they come down to the same thing. Some of them are better than others, but most people get by just fine. 'Quirk' is a generic politically-correct way to say it, back when powers were... well, not as common."

"And you two, you're heroes, huh?"

Lily cracked a smile. "Yup." She nudged Kazu in the elbow with her own. "Kazu and I graduated from the same school in America the same year, and since both of us are half-Japanese and wanted to explore that side of ourselves, we joined an agency here. Dual citizenship baby, gotta love it."

"And what about this All for One?" he asked again.

Lily's expression darkened. Naruto had seen that face before. Whenever people remembered the ghosts of the worst parts of their history, especially their own personal lives, the memories of all the horrible events could come rushing back all in an instant. "He... All for One, that's all we know him as... he's the closest thing to pure evil that has ever spawned on this Earth. Without a doubt, he singlehandedly will be regarded as the greatest monster ever born to a human woman in the history of the world."

"Long story short," Kazu interjected, "he was a guy that had the ability to steal the Quirks from anyone he wanted, without limit or remorse. He used tha' power to pretty much cause a one-man terrorism campaign against the whole damn world. He would steal the Quirks that took his interest, whatever took his fancy, and nobody could stop him. Sometimes, he'd give the Quirks he'd confiscated to a lieutenant, or just for fun to somebody that he knew would cause nothing but havoc and misery. Just to see what would happen." His eyes narrowed at the noodles for a moment before he looked back up. "It was bad, man. Real bad. Society was borked beyond belief for a while there. We managed to claw our way back to normal after a while, but man... that took about fifty years. Rumor is that All Might managed to put him down for good a while back, but nobody's got firsthand data on that from what I can get ahold of."

"You mean one guy in a world full of superpowers was able to throw things off for over half a century?" Naruto asked in mild shock.

"It's not like everybody had powers yet!" Lily rebuked. "All for One was either a first or second generation Quirk user, and he consolidated his power and influence before anybody even existed who could put up a fight. And you showing up doing what you did, that made a lot of people really nervous." She steepled her fingers and leaned her chin into them, shoulders hunched, eyes alert. "I'd appreciate if you could help me convince a bunch of them that you aren't the boogyman they think you are. What happens after that is up to you. We can give you a history course later on if you want. But right now, I think it's time we learned a little bit more about you."

"That is," Kazu added, "if we even buy into this story you're telling us."

Naruto nodded at him. "Fair point, kid." He raised his hand to his mouth in thought. "Guess the easiest place to begin is closer towards the beginning. I am from... somewhere else. I come from a world much further away than you could possibly imagine. It's okay if you don't believe me; I'm not vested in convincing you of anything."

"You said you were a shinobi? Did I hear that right? Lightbulb McGee is a frickin neon highly-visible Ninja?" Kazu asked.

Naruto laughed. "I get the skepticism," he allowed. "But back home, I wasn't lighting up the house all the time." His hands moved as he talked, his body language following along to move the story. "I don't have time to give you the whole story, and damn you wouldn't believe how long it really is if you include the filler, but I grew up in a shinobi village from the time I was young. Lots of things happened along the way, I had my hero's journey from adolescence to adulthood and learning responsibility- blah blah blah." He shrugged. "Point being, some people from my world have the natural affinity to connect to the force of nature and life that we call chakra and bring out the inner potential through techniques called Ninjutsu. Spells, more or less, if you want to have a western equivalent, though we cast them with our hands, not a wand or staff most of the time."

"A mystical ninja from a hidden village," Lily said playfully. "That sounds like an old bad anime or something."

"Or a really good one," he countered. "There are worlds out there where, well where literally anything is possible. I do not have the vocabulary in any language to describe to you just how vast and dangerous the deep nothingness is. I come from a world that operates under fundamentally different rules than yours, ok? Lily, you referenced anime. You've seen a few, then?"

"Uh, yeah? Enough, I guess?"

He waved a hand. Okay. "Let's put it like this, to try to give you something to work with. You ever seen a show where, right in the beginning, someone or something from a world or dimension they didn't belong in somehow gets lost or something along that lines? I'm talking, straight up 'magician in fantasy kingdom reincarnates in cyberpunk dystopia' levels of trite and unimaginative?"

The cabin was silent for a few long moments. Kazu and Lily were too traumatized to be disagreeable just then, and he was making a small sort of sense. "You can't just show up and tell us magic is real," Lily said softly. "Doesn't really feel fair to find out like this."

Of all the reactions to this day that she could have had, that was what she said. "Hold on, you still believed in magic? You can turn into a swarm of computers. Seems a bit off-character."

"No, I didn't believe in magic. But I'm open to possibilities. My nana always claimed we were from a line of witches, and I heard enough to keep thinking something might be out there."

"Smart cookie," Naruto said. "I'm from a place that isn't that much different from here, at the end of the day. Most people I know just want to meet interesting people and eat good food, by and large, and that's pretty much how people are anywhere you go."

"But... a shinobi. You're gonna hafta unwrap that one a bit, Nightlight," Kazu said.

Naruto nodded toward him, point acknowledged. "Let's put it like this. For you, Quirks are genetic, right? Born with one, that's it? Is it inherited and passed down, or random odds on what happens?"

Lily took this one. "It's a bit of both," she explained carefully. "For a while, random Quirks appeared as people passed through adolescence, generally when they hit puberty, and it was a random bag. As more and more children were born each year that would later go on to gain powers of their own, generational studies show that it's possible for someone to be born with a Quirk that is unrelated to either of their parents'; but predominantly, they gain traits from both of them that combine into a singular Quirk. Even today, if two Quirkless have a kid, more than likely their child will have some sort of random ability."

"Some people don't have powers?"

Lily shrugged. "More people get them than don't these days. I think during the last census, we're under 20% Quirkless around the world right now. Another thirty or forty years, might get to the point where everybody's born with one. That's just the way it is."

"All right, okay. I can work with this. Do you want to know exactly how my powers work?"

That got their immediate attention. "Enlighten us," quipped Kazu.

The corner of Naruto's mouth tugged up. "You're familiar with generational adaption, good. That'll make this easier." He cleared his throat, took a sip of tea that had been provided earlier, and continued on. "Where I'm from, the powers that people can possess are much different that what you are familiar with. Many, many generations before I was born- some estimates put it around a thousand years or so before then, though historical records are unreliable for certain reasons, and it might be a little longer than that- a woman named Kaguya appeared who was the predecessor of my people."

Naruto hadn't had to think about that woman for a very long time. He didn't exactly miss her, but he wasn't about to trash talk family in front of strangers. He'd keep the internal politics out for now. "Calling her powerful wouldn't even begin to describe it. Merely by existing, she changed the balance of power in any lands that she found herself in. Eventually, she had children, who inherited much of her power, though it would be fair to say that each of them took different traits from her and went their own way. They had kids, who in turn had their own kids, I don't need to spell it out for you. In a lot of ways, she might be a little bit like All for One. She wasn't just powerful; in her time, in my home, she redefined the word authority. Her individual skills weren't as varied as mine, but it's fair to say that nobody born after she died ever quite measured up to her scale, not for a very long time.

"Chakra is the power of nature. It is a force that exists within all life, everywhere, connected by intangible threads and links so fragile, yet so powerful, that to hold it and own it is to be a part of the planet itself." He held up a hand, splayed out, but after a moment's consideration, decided not to use his technique again. "The ball I showed you earlier was called a Rasengan. It's a handy visual way to explain what chakra actually is, but it's not something to play around with. I wasn't able to fully form it because I'm still pretty banged up. I heal up enough, I can show you what I can really do, but this?" He tapped his face where the shroud had fallen earlier. "This is tissue paper holding an industrial crane together with prayer. I'll heal up just fine with enough rest, though."

"Huh."

"Yes, Lily?"

"... How does it work?"

"You're buying all this, huh?" Kazu said to Lily.

"Even if he's lying," Lily replied calmly, not yet looking away from their guest, "might as well hear him out so we can catch him in a lie later on, right?"

Oh, you tricky vixen. "You asking how that particular technique works? Or what I do in general?"

"Yes."

"Hn. The mathematician's answer. Where I'm from, chakra is the power of life itself." He put a hand to his belly with a wistful expression that was fleeting and gone within seconds. "It grows in all living things. Humans, animals, rivers and grass. It is the soul. It is fire. It is the fuel that we burn to exist throughout our lives.

"Where I am from, those who followed the old religion of Ninshu, established by one of the first Brothers, the Sons of Kaguya, learned everything they could about the power they inherited and learned and discussed what to do with it. Eventually, enough people were given the ability to use this power that even those who weren't linked by blood to the brothers were able to do extraordinary things and climb to heights of power in their own right. I belong to a clan descended from one of the brothers down the line-" He sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "You've heard of shinobi, right? Is that a familiar term?"

"Dude. This is Japan."

Naruto blinked at Kazu. "Yeah, sorry man, just checking. Not every version of Japan has superpowers, but they all didn't go through the feudal system either. But long story short, I was a big shot for a while when I got a little older, and then my kids got in a whole mess of trouble with what you could call 'gods' in our universe, but they're more like abominably-powerful precursors that have powers that are vast and broken beyond reason or measure. A few things happend after that, and-"

"Hold up. Back up. Rewind that just a tick." Lily held her hand up in classic "look at me, teacher" form. "Say that one more time, just so I can hear ya."

Shit, I thought I could bury that in the fine print. "I know what you mean," he said with a chuckle. "A guy like me with kids, right? How'd I trick someone into marrying me?"

"Little further, mate," Kazu said. "Hell you mean by 'every version of Japan'? I thought you said you didn't know anything about Quirks? You done this before?"

Naruto thought about his next words carefully. "You... uh, you might want to sit down."

"We're already sitting down."

"Then you might want a drink."

"Beers in the cooler," Kazu said without skipping a beat. "I was going to have such a nice time on the beach today. I brought snacks. Umbrellas for the drinks. Everything." He stood to go to the porthole, mumbling along the way. "I ain't runnin', don't worry," he growled. "Don't start without me." Lily waved at his back as he left her and Naruto momentarily alone for the first time since he had awoken.

Kazu got up to walk out the portal, and a moment afterwards, he came right back inside. "Covered in blood," he said flatly as he sat back down.

He might need therapy, Naruto thought.

"I got you," Lily grumbled. She leaned down to fumble under her cot and pulled a block about ten inches to a side from under it. It seemed to be made of a white plastic shell with no discernable seams or latches. With a small click the top split open from a concealed iris eye, and a cloud of silvery particles dispersed into the air to thread into an air vent on the floor. "Biobots," she explained to her ward. "I can turn my body into them, but using a lot risks damage to myself if I can't replace enough in time to reform my body if they get destroyed. I can generate a certain amount at a time, but I need raw materials to replace mass lost from that." She tossed the cube to Naruto; now that he knew they were there, no use keeping it from him. He gave it a quick once-over, nodded in approval, and gave it back. "But if I eat a lot of food in a solid sitting and can get my hands on what I need, I can produce about ten kilograms a day for cold storage just in case I need it."

"Hence the mess from earlier," Kazu added. "She ain't been as busy as usual so her metabolism is fightin' her diet."

Lily rolled her eyes at that. "They'll have the liquor here in a few minutes. Might as well start ruining my life."

Naruto smiled at that. "Where do you want to start?"

She narrowed her eyes a bit. That was a good question. This guy seemed amicable, but there was a lot to go over in a limited amount of time. One question would lead to an answer which would loop back onto a tangent, and unless she and Kazu asked the right questions, the answers would be meaningless.

She thought back to when she arrived on the scene, and replayed the events as she remembered them. "Fine. Keep it simple. Explain to us like we only need the basics. The ring of fire in the sky. What was it, how did you make it, and is there a threat that it could happen again?"

"Mhmm. Okay, we're starting with the easy stuff." Naruto put his hands together and gently bowed his head. "I promise you, an event like that won't bother your people again, at least not from me. As for what exactly it was... I'd have to roll that story back a little bit to tell you everything."

"We've got all night," Lily said just as the portal opened once more, a red cooler sloshing with ice crinkling within. Kazu, being closest to it when the swarm relocated back into the box and redeposited under the bed, cracked the lid open and handed tropical-patterned beer cans out. "You drink?" she asked Naruto.

He smiled and nodded. "Not often, but I never turn down a drink. Kampai."

Kazu chuckled a bit, but opened his can and clinked it with the others'. The longer he talked to Naruto, the more traumatized he got, but the more he seemed like "just some guy" too.

"So," Naruto said after a few good swigs and wiping his lips on his arm. "Where to start. I guess I better start with telling you who exactly I am." He scratched his head and pondered. "You've heard of multiple universe theories before, right? Different worlds, planes of reality, alternate history kind of stuff?"

"Yeah but... that's not real," said Lily.

"Yes. It is." Naruto shrugged. "I'm from 'somewhere else' entirely than anything you are familiar with." He took another sip and nodded in approval. "Is that apricot?"

Kazu actually smiled at that. "Weird, I know, but it grows on you."

"Mmm. Here's the thing, okay? Where I am from, there are certain individuals who have the inherent power to break through the barriers separating reality to get to another 'place' and 'time' from where we are born." He waved a hand to forestall an interruption from Lily. "Yes, I know it sounds like some freaky science fiction or fantasy story here, but it's true. I'm not one of the people who can do it naturally, but I've figured out ways to make it possible for me to copy the technique. That was a long time ago, though, and I... I haven't been home in a while." He sighed and drank some more. "It's a very long story that might fill about a thousand chapters in a weekly manga, if you're familiar with that scale."

"Never heard of it put like that before," quipped Lily.

"Heh. Long story very short, though, after a while I put my old life behind me and just started adventuring as much as I could and exploring the deepest reaches of reality that my realms had to offer. One thing lead to another, and I started meeting interesting people left and right. Fought a few of them, too. Kept training through the years, picked up new skills where I landed. Sometimes I had to... let's say, 'start over' a few times." He pointed to his glowing chest. "The things that I could do aren't anything that you've had experience with in the past, and the horizons I've seen would make you question reality itself. Got into my fair share of fights. Did some things that I wasn't super proud of after the fact. Fell in love, lost it, tried again. I used to be a lot of things that I'm trying to put behind me. Until recently, I've mostly lived as a personal trainer of sorts so I can build a home life, but... things happened."

"Things happened? Like, 'volcanos and murdercult' things?" Lily hadn't forgotten his exact words for a second from their initial conversation.

Naruto looked at her steadily for a moment. "You should be careful with the answers you try to get," he said. "So be precise with your questions. Because I'll be honest."

There was a chill in the air lingering along after his words fell silent. Lily decided to change tactics slightly. "You- you were in some kind of a battle on the other side. For some reason. I'm sure you had reasons."

"Yes." Sip. "You remember the rest of the conversation, correct?"

"Yeah. Yeah. You said, um..." She puckered her lips. "You said you had a daughter."

CrikSPLURT. The can in Naruto's hand crumpled and booze splashed onto the ceiling to patter down in a misty drizzle around the room. "Shit," breathed Kazu. "Lily, shut up."

"Have," Naruto corrected more gently than he appeared. "I have a daughter. And I'm going to see her again very, very soon. As soon as I'm healed up enough to move energy around without breaking myself in half, I'm going to be moving on. I can't afford to waste time on a crossover episode with you guys. You seem nice and interesting enough, and in another life I think we'd be friends." He sighed and grabbed a spare unbloodied towel beside him. "I'm sorry I got a lot of you worried, and I'll make it up when I manage to find my way back after I leave. It shouldn't take more than two or three days to get patched up. Then, I'm gone. That's just the way it is."

"You thought you'd only be in a coma for a few days, too," said Kazu. "Maybe you ain't as good as you think you is."

Naruto opened his mouth to retort- but stopped. Shit. He's right. I forgot.

I don't have Kurama anymore.

"Be that as it may," he continued, "I'm not keen to be taken into official custody and put behind bars. Not that it would do you any good, I can literally rip steel apart with my bare fingers. You don't know anybody who could contain me against my will. If I want to leave, I can blend in for as long as I want until I can go take care of my family."

"Good luck blending in," muttered Kazu.

"This is gonna be gone by morning," Naruto retorted. "It's a life support version of a combat technique I know. Never tried it this way, though, I'm honestly surprised I eventually thought of it."

Lily waved her hand at him. "How does that all, um, work?" she asked. "You've told us a lot that sounds like nonsense, but I'm looking at this and I still don't know what I'm seeing." She nudged Kazu with her elbow. "Even he's freaking out, and he's seen everything. Literally."

Guess it's time for Chakra 101. "Kinda hard to explain," he began. "You're really just going to have to take at face value that I'm telling the truth. That everything that I tell you is, in fact, a real and very big part of my life and identity. This power, energy, chakra, it's as much a part of me as your powers are for you.

"Chakra is the power of life itself. Creation, destruction, light and dark. It connects me to the five elements, with the Yang and Yin world balance. It allows me to draw power from nature, to feel the world around me as if it was my skin. Chakra is generated within my body and my reservoirs are so deep, that normally being banged up like this wouldn't be a problem. The techniques that you saw me use are forms of ninjutsu, a manifestation and expression of my wills and desires in the surrounding world. Usually, I need to form hand signs in the correct sequence to use them, but I've learned how to prepare jutsu in advance. Speaking of which, how'd you like the GooRenew?"

"The what now?"

"I'm still workshopping the name," Naruto explained. "Came up with it after an incident with London Bridge about sixty years ago when I was running around with this weird alien guy that also had a zest for adventure. Had to fix it so we wouldn't alter history. Super long story."

"He's gotta be fuckin' with us," Kazu muttered. "So what, now you're a time traveler?"

"What? Oh no, no no. I don't travel forwards or backwards in time, that's FAR too much hassle to keep my brain occupied with. I only travel sideways, sometimes I slow it down or speed it up but that's only for emergencies... Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Sixty years?"

Ah, snickerdoodle. Oops. "I'm a little older than I look. It's-"

"-A long story, we know," finished Lily. "You really expect us to believe that you're some magical elemental dimension hopping super ninja that moisturizes and exfoliates so flawlessly that you look like you're in your twenties. And you also came careening through a fiery hole in the sky because you got trapped in a dimensional prison that you somehow broke out of, that was filled with enough heat from a reawakened volcano while you were fighting in there. This is somehow centered around your daughter, who you assume is safe, but if she's why this happened to you, then obviously whoever did this to you may still be out there."

"Ahem. Correct on most points. But I'm reasonably sure that the ones who actually trapped me were dead just after they triggered the trap."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well. I killed them, of course. No point in letting them survive the encounter if I knew I was already screwed. Don't worry, they didn't suffer."

He didn't tell them that in the three or five seconds he had to himself after they set their plan into motion, he whispered a disc of air thinner than a needle to decapitate all twelve men and women in robes holding the strands of black rope in their hands that were the fuses for the spell.

"But you're right. My daughter was in danger because of me. My family, my clan, we're... special, even among our own kind. Everyone I've ever been related to by blood has skills that are far from the norm, even amongst the elite. That doesn't make them stronger or anything, but we can tap into potential that go off the beaten track. The circles that I run in aren't very pleasant sometimes, and I'm kind of a known party. I have particular, let's say 'attributes' that are unique enough that finding someone with my skillset is hard to find. I was trying to retire, in a way, and settle down to focus on family for the time being.

"Someone from the old days kidnapped my daughter when I was away and used her as bait to draw me out. I didn't see it coming. They were either going to do unspeakable things to her, or force me to trade myself for her life. I took the third option."

In one hand, he raised the towel, and he raised the other, fingers splayed upwards. "Sorry about the mess." A blue dot formed in his hand again, and both Lily and Kazu drew backwards. "Don't worry, it's just water." The ball grew again and, indeed, he was somehow creating a small orb of quivering water in his hands. The towel suddenly zipped into it, absorbing the majority of the moisture, and the heroes followed it as it zipped to the ceiling and cleaned the sprayed alcohol on down the walls and floor.

"What the hell?!" they said in unison.

Naruto shrugged. "Master of the five elements," he reminded them. "Water and wind. Makes cleaning messes so much easier."

Kazu leaned over to Lily as the towel daintily wiped a few spots of beer from his shoes. "I'm starting to think he's telling the truth," he admitted, "but I don't have to like it."

"I knew I should have taken the day off when it was offered that day," she agreed.

The towel flew into a bin of laundry with the bloodied one, the room cleaner now than it had been before.

"What happened to your daughter?" Lily prompted carefully.

Naruto took a deep, shaky breath. "I don't know," he said. "I had allies with me. I wasn't worried about them in the fight. Most of them are stronger than me, or at least can take me on one-on-one. I made sure they were able to evacuate her after we got her away from the scene. But I didn't stop to ask them where they were going to take her. Safer that way."

"How could that possibly be safer?" Kazu asked.

A cold, cruel smile crept along Naruto's lips. "Oh. Right. I didn't bring them with me to fight. They came to ensure a safe evacuation. Taking out the guards, the defenses on location, nothing to it. Didn't even need stealth. Twenty friends to escort her to safety. I wasn't there to fight them." The cooler lid lifted seemingly by itself, and a fresh can floated to Naruto's outstretched hand. Lily and Kazu both tracked the movements with unbelieving expressions. "I was there to eviscerate their souls."

He opened the can and took a long draught. "I think I managed to get about seventeen million bastard monsters before they managed to get the drop on me. I don't think they'll come after me or mine again."

Kazu and Lily looked at him with dawning understanding that they really didn't know who they were actually dealing with. "If it makes you feel better," Naruto said quietly, "most of them weren't human. I did what I had to do when it needed to be done to end a threat."

"That's a lot of people, man," Lily said.

Naruto leaned forward to meet her eyes. "They weren't people, girl. That AFO guy that you were so scared of- if someone blew his head off and threw his corpse in the ocean to be gobbled by sharks, would you shed a tear?"

She blinked and looked away. "Probably not," she admitted.

"So, if it's all the same to you fine folks... I'd like to get some rest as soon as I can. By this time tomorrow, the shroud should be gone and I can pass for a normal person again. But I need to go into a deep meditative state. More than my body needs to heal right now, and I can't do that quickly unless I'm in a trance."

"You still look like that under there?" Kazu said. "Like, all broken and mangled? How does that thing even keep you alive?"

"Good question. Have you ever played video games?"

"...huh?"

"Oh come on, please tell me you don't have video games but you have anime."

"Of course we've played games before," said Lily.

"Right, right. This is the best analogy I can think of right now. Um. Okay, imagine you're playing an RPG of some kind. You got mana, health, and armor, right? Let's just use those tropes and follow along with me for a second. Imagine you were in a boss battle and you had the option to retreat, but you were poisoned, had all your armor broken, and your HP was down to nil, but you still technically have a lot of mana to burn. You have a trick that reduces the mana to almost zero, the poison is nullified but still technically there in your system, but you gain indestructible armor that slowly raises your HP until you get time to buff yourself up. Under normal circumstances, a technique like this wouldn't be something I would resort to, but apparently it was the only way I could survive the trap. There's a secondary effect; any energy that wasn't used to create the armor was used as an omnidirectional explosion to break me from that trap. It's a necessary side effect because the cloak can't be overwhelmed to the point in straining to hold too much power in one place.

"I haven't been this beat-up in a very, very long time, and the last time it happened I had medical treatment to get me through it. Wasn't exaggerating saying you guys probably saved my life just now. I'm over the hill, and as it stands I just need a few nights' sleep to recover before I'm ready to get back to business." He frowned and sighed again. "Guys, I'm resourceful. Even like this, I can just go and be fine. You've done enough, and I think you can convince your superiors of whatever you want by this point, probably 'cause it's weirder than anything you could make up. Go ahead and tell 'em that I'm some weird guy with a strong power- Quirk- copying ability who took himself out for a joyride, and lost control. Wouldn't be the first time, I bet."

Lily looked over at Kazu. "That does sound like a plausible explanation," she offered. "Not agreeing to the plan, you hear now, but that sounds right."

"Could still be the truth, and he's just pulling the wool over our eyes," Kazu retorted.

"You saw what was under that candlestick," Lily countered. "If he was born human, he'd be dead."

"I resent that!" said Naruto. "I was born as human as any of you. Not my fault that only lasted about ten minutes, is it?"

"I don't want to know," said Kazu. "I genuinely do not want to know."

"I do!"

"Don't encourage him, Santiago."

She rolled her eyes. "I think it's best that you stay here, Lightbulb. Even in Tokyo, people who shine like that tend to get noticed. It's kind of a thing with us. If you could turn the glow off, I figured you would have by now."

He nodded to her. "Point made."

"Not to mention," she continued, ticking off her fingers, "that if you went out on your own, you wouldn't have resources. If you're really- God, I can't believe I am about to say this- from some other plane of reality, it's not likely you're gonna have any money on you."

Naruto held his hands up. "Nope, not at all. I'm technically naked under all this. My clothes and gear were all incinerated during the fight. This aura is skintight. It takes the form of clothing as a physical manifestation for a stable sympathetic response, but it's illusionary."

Lily's jaw silently dropped as the comprehension hit her like a Mac truck. "You mean I've been sleeping with a naked man four feet away from me for three weeks now?"

"Dooooon't get excited. I'm a taken man," he teased her. "And you covered me in trash. Hard pass."

"Sheesh. Anyway, if you were alone out there, you would be on the run at any time if someone recognized you. If you wanted food, you might steal, or do something else to get it that wouldn't behoove you. You could probably find shelter somewhere soon, but being a stranger in a strange land, you don't know the city like we do."

"He probably gets into trouble as easily as he walks down a road," Kazu added.

"That would be a fair assessment, yes."

"I have a question," Kazu said. "You said that you were hurt really bad and didn't have any juice left, but you just did that thing with the towel. How did you do that?"

"One of the perks of being me," Naruto said with a grin, "is that I have an extremely close connection to the five great elements; water, earth, fire, lightning, and my personal favorite, wind. I need to put more effort in if I want to do complex techniques, but the areas around my hands are tricked to act as foci for manual control."

"Translation, please?" Lily said.

"It's the hands," Kazu said. "Basically, he said he can manipulate the moisture in the air and concentrate it with raw hand movements, din' cha? You were wigglin' yer forefingers when you were cleaning up. Thought it might be a twitch or somethin' 'till I realized they were moving just ahead of the towel. That's it, ain't it?"

He's sharp. "You've got good eyes," Naruto said. "Yes, that's basically what happened."

"Five elements, though. That sounds pretty magical to me. I'm trying to wrap my head around this, because really man, there's no such thing as 'magic' in the first place. I don't care what you choose to call it, but really? A five element ninja? That's the corniest thing you could come up with if you were lyin'."

"Hey, if it weren't true, I wouldn't believe it myself. To be fair, though, I grew up around this stuff. It's normal for me." He waved a hand at Lily. "You guys have had powers in your world for, what? A century and a half or so now? Explain her to somebody from before then. Mister Kazu, if you time traveled to sixteenth-century Japan, the only thing they would do is call you an oni because that's the only explanation that would make any sense. I am the proverbial 'Giant Space Flea From Nowhere' to you people, and I really do need to stress- I should not be here. The longer I stay around you two, the more complicated things are going to get for you. I'm trying to do you a favor by getting out of your hair as soon as I can." He held his hands apart. "I can absolutely prove everything to you guys, if you give me some time. Once I set a beacon, I've got friends out there who can get me out of here."

"I thought you said you knew how to do that on your own?" said Lily.

Naruto nodded. "I can, but I need the right tools to do so. You might be imagining something like a rip in space to walk through or an intricate gate that looks like it was ripped from a cheesy Gothic horror, but it's more like a portal checkpoint system with me. I told you guys that I was a refugee- and I am absolutely lost. I have no idea what these universal coordinates are, I don't have my gear, and even if I could appropriate replacements, it might not even do any good. I'm kind of handicapped."

"How long would it take to heal?" Kazu asked. "Like, really heal up?"

Naruto shook his head. "No. No. Not handicapped like that. More like... hrm. How to explain so you could understand? Er, are you familiar acupuncture points?"

The heroes traded glances. "Acupuncture? Really? Like, nerve bundles in your body?"

Naruto snapped a finger. "Yes. So, imagine that this energy, 'chakra', is generated by my body while I live and breathe and eat and work, just like all those things generate heat in the body, right?"

"You're saying that this comes from within you?" Kazu asked. "You said it was the power of nature or something."

"That's right, it is," Naruto said. "Where I'm from, all living things are connected in a chain of life and death. Chakra can be found in all living things, but we shinobi are able to use it very constructively. The body and soul both create it separately, actually, and it's by blending the two with focus that ninjutsu is formed.

"However, while I can draw energy from life around me, a lot more's broken about me than meets the eye." He tapped on his rib cage with his right hand. "Do you have any desire at all to see what's under here? I can tell you without peeking that this don't look human. My organs are currently rearranging themselves, and I'm pretty sure at least one kidney is starting over from scratch. Maybe forty percent of my body was critically injured. Might not be able to save a hand" He took a finger and traced from his head to his heart, his belly, and back up to the shoulder and outstretched open palm to the fingertips. "The pressure points represent lines of energy that flow through my body. As busted up as I am, I can't do anything big and flashy, not at the levels I'm used to. And even when I'm physically healed, it could take about two weeks of training for the lines to reconnect. Another week of conditioning. But if I set a beacon, I could get a bailout in three days.

"Drawing energy from nature here wouldn't do me that much good. There's no raw juice to sustain me that would make much of a difference. Hell, I don't even know if the divine have an active presence here or not, and if they... why are you staring at me like that?"

"...divine?"

Ah shit. Naruto took a deep breath. "Well. Yeah. I'm sorry if you thought I was being metaphorical with the talk about souls and gods and stuff. But hey, don't worry. You're a nice guy, even if there's no divinity actively present, you get a decent afterlife if you're generally a good dude."

"That's... good... to know," Kazu said. "What if I believe in reincarnation?"

"Maybe you'll wake up as a wizard in another universe. I've seen it happen."

"I will not get isekai'd," Kazu grumbled with crossed arms. "That's not actually an option, is it?"

Naruto leaned forward with a wolfish grin. "Want me to speed-dial Truck-kun?" Oh good, I'm threatening him with memes. I forgot, these people are Americans originially. This is officially much better than the time I woke up in Arizona.

"Please do not get my partner run over by a truck," Lily ordered dryly. "Listen, we can buy you some time, okay? But don't go running off on us. Kazu, tell the boss whatever you need to keep out of here for at least a couple days. Tell Trooper I'm fine, you relieved me for a while today so I could go home if he asks." She turned her attention to Naruto again. "You said this could be done by morning, right?"

He nodded. "There are certain methods I can use to accelerate my recovery, yes. I do need to go into a meditative state to do it, however. It's a delicate process, even for a guy like me, and I can't manage it without interruptions." He held a hand up because he knew what Lily was about to say. "I'm not asking you to leave. I just need to be left alone for a while." He gave the cot a light tap. "I swear, I'm just going to sit here. The most interesting thing you'll be seeing is me breathing for the next dozen hours."

Kazu rubbed at his neck. "If that's what yer plannin' on doin' for now, I might as well go. This was a lot to process. I know, don't say nothin'... Who'd believe me? Lily? Heading home. Call if things change."

"Actually, I could use a favor," Naruto said. He waved at the blanket on the bed. "That's all I got for skivvies. One of you mind getting me something with pockets? I'd really like pockets. I'll make it up to you."

Kazu rolled his eyes as he walked to the door. "I'll try to have somethin' delivered to my place tonight," he said. "I ain't goin' shopping after this fiasco. Don't worry about your size, I got it figured out."

"He is the best to go shopping with," Lily said. "He can size clothes in an instant."

"A man of many talents," Naruto acknowledged with a chuckle. "I appreciate it. Thank you." He said it with such sincerity that Kazu almost forgot what he'd done to him.

"I'll send you the bill to my shrink one of these days," he said over his shoulder. "Keep the beers. Lily, gimme a box, I'll send some Biobots back with the rest of the snacks. Think you're gonna need them. Hell, gimme two, I'll send the clothes this way if they're delivered soon."

"Woah, you can do that?" He leaned forward in sudden interest. "How?"

It was strange to see him curious about their powers. Lily grinned and hefted a couple of the cubes onto her lap. "Two reasons: Because I'm that damn good, and because these are blanks that only activate when certain programs are put into play, and only I know the programming language of my DNA to rewrite them."

"That's three, actually."

"But I also wrote a program that can give external inputs to specific blocks at a time." She nodded at Kazu by the door. "Of all the people I know, he's the only one I trust to have carte blanch access to my Biobots. He can't get them to do anything super complex, but he's been around me enough to have the practice. That's who he is to me."

Naruto considered Kazu's back. He had paused to remain a part of the conversation. "That's my guy," she said.

"That's my girl," he answered.

Naruto heard the easy callback between them and realized that this was something that they've said over and over through the years. "Used to have a girl friend like that," he said into his drink. "I get it, kids. I appreciate the help. You won't regret this."

"Better hope not," Kazu replied as the door slid open and shut behind him with a thud.

"He's just worried," Lily assured him. "Today was a lot for all of us."

"Tell me about it," Naruto laughed.

"Are you going to start, what? Meditating now? How's that work?"

He shook his head and patted his belly. "I'm gonna wait for my food to digest a little bit." As if on cue, he belly began to rumble in retaliation to all the food that had been unceremoniously shoved through his gullet. "My organs really have almost healed by now, and most of the major internal bleeding has gradually patched itself up." He groaned a bit as he readjusted his back. "Oh joy, I still have external bleeding to go though."

"Need a distraction?" Lily asked.

"What do you have in mind?"

Lily leaned back in her cot, back to the wall, pulled her knees up to her chest and grinned.

Here she was, a woman in the prime of her youth, chatting with a madman from another world. She already believed every word this fantastic thing was saying to her. Whether he proved true or not, she felt something stirring that she had not felt in such a long time- adventure. Something grand was about to happen, and somehow she knew that like it or not, Kazu and her were about to be swept in his wake.

"Tell me a story," she whispered, eyes alight with wonder and mischief.

Naruto looked at this beautiful young lady before him, raven hair streaked with snow. He had seen that expression before. "Fine. Why not."

What story would be good for the setting?

Why not start from the beginning.

"There once was a in a village very far from here, and he was always getting into mischief..."

They talked far into the night. They ate and drank together, exchanging stories and thoughts, educating each other in the bare bones of what they did. Naruto was very careful not to spill the beans on most of his life experiences, focusing on his time in the Land of Fire, but it would be easy to slip and give way to the complete truth.

And nobody needed that.

And yes, eventually, she did fall asleep, drunk and happy. Naruto covered her with a blanket before he settled in to relax and slip into a meditative coma himself. The morning would soon be there, and he had much to do.

A/N: I am finishing this at 4:20 in the morning woo hoo, I can go to sleep. I'd like to thank my mother for this accomplishment, hi mom!