Naruto sat in front of a dresser in his room with a shadow clone in front of him.

He furrowed his eyebrows for a moment before snapping his fingers with a grin.

Seeming to read his mind, the shadow clone in front of him did a familiar jutsu, transforming into a young woman with a shapely body. Even so, she was not excessively well-endowed. She could even be said to have the perfect female proportions. She appeared nineteen, with long silky auburn brown hair styled in a half updo. She had a generous D-cup (this was, in fact, quite important) and slender arms and legs. Her waist was slim and she had quite the ample bottom, just enough to make any normal man drool without looking overly lascivious. She had soft delicate hands that looked like they knew no labour and her smooth milky thighs would make most men's imaginations wander. Her facial features were vaguely Caucasian, which even made her look a little exotic in comparison with other women. Her eyes were as warm as honey, her full cherry red lips just slightly pouted, giving her a rather innocent look which contrasted with her figure.

Although what was likely the most ideal woman (or the woman who appealed to the largest majority of men at the very least) stood before him naked, Naruto had no wicked or unseemly thoughts. He personally designed the beautiful form that stood in front of him, after all. Besides, he never put much stock in a person's physical appearance. He truly did not care at all what the other party looked like and did not even treat his female acquaintances any different from how he did his male ones.

He had read plenty of books and knew what flirting was (even if he did not truly understand what it meant). He simply could not even begin to comprehend just what it was about the presence of the opposite sex that other men found alluring. He could not even recall ever having a crush on anyone. There had been no one that he felt those fluffy feelings that romance novels detailed for. He had not even flirted with a girl before. The girl that he was closest to was Sakura, whom he had always viewed as a sister. He had not been popular in his academy days either. With his act as the class idiot, it would have been stranger if he was popular with the girls. If he were in their shoes, he definitely would not be interested in associating with himself either. As for what they referred to as sexual frustration, Naruto never felt it.

It was similar to how female jinchūriki did not have monthly bleedings like other women. They would not get pregnant unless they desired a child, even if they underwent intercourse. A perk of being a jinchūriki was that one's bodily functions were under their control. Thus, the hormonal changes associated with one's age hardly even affected jinchūriki. The strain that came with imprisoning the bijū within their bodies, however, was a different matter altogether. It was for that reason that jinchūriki typically live short lives.

Mito, the wife of the Shōdaime, was an Uzumaki. The Uzumaki were known for their strong life force and astounding talent in fūinjutsu and kenjutsu. An average Uzumaki clan member could easily live to the age of hundred and twenty without medical support and be a perfectly functional member of society. A member of the royal family had an even more robust bloodline and often lived to the ripe old age of two hundred. A large portion of Mito's lifespan had been exhausted to keep the Kyūbi restrained. If not for that, she would never have died in bed in such a feeble manner before the age of hundred and fifty.

Thus, Naruto never had pimples (or experienced morning wood, for that matter) in his previous life.

He thought there might be a word for his inclination, though he did not know what it was called.

"Moving on from that strange topic since it does seem that the story went on a bit of a tangent," Naruto muttered under his breath.

"The fourth wall," Mugetsu reminded Naruto.

"Ah. Oops. Forget that then," he spoke to the air with a sheepish expression. "Is it too late for us to delete that?"

"It would have been fine if the two of you did not so explicitly speak of it," Shukaku pointed out.

"And that could have stopped there if you did not decide to butt in," Kurama snorted.

'You lot should quit that. We really should be getting back to the story,' Naruto chided the bijū within him as though he was telling off misbehaving children, but the prideful bijū obeyed anyway and went quiet at once.

With a huff, Naruto went back to analysing his clone's transformation. He nodded after a while, carefully moulding his chakra as he created matter out of yin chakra through In'yōton. He did not have any women's clothing, after all. He made two white tufts of fur and placed one on each side of the bun. Then he made a lifelike golden butterfly and placed it on one of the white tufts. Once that was done, he made a pink furisode kimono patterned with sakura flowers which had gold thread weaved into it such that it glimmered like it would if the real flowers caught the sun's rays. The white obi at the waist was wrapped with an objime that was braided with gold and dark pink while the obi itself was made into an elaborate flower on the back. As a finishing touch, Naruto added a splash of pale pink to the white flower that had been folded using the obi and a smaller golden butterfly that rested on the knot of the obijime.

It was only then that he used his Kage Henge no Jutsu to transform himself into the form of the shadow clone that stood before him. Then, he used an altered Kawarimi to replace himself with the clone, thereby putting the clothes on himself. At this point, he looked nothing like his usual self. Nothing gave away his gender, much less his actual identity. He even suspected that he would not be found out even if he walked right past Sakura and Sasuke in his current getup.

He made an ice mirror in the air and checked his appearance over once.

Then Naruto seemed to disappear like a mirage while the shadow clone transformed back into the form of the usual hyperactive knucklehead that most of the village knew as the dead last in his year within the academy. The clone put on a hideously orange jumpsuit and sat down at the study table to read a new book that Sasori had sent him about poisons. It was a book that the Akasuna no Sasori had written himself after Naruto had requested to learn more about Sasori's poisons. All the clone had to do was pretend to be its master anyway. It might as well do something more productive and help its master out and study something in this time instead of simply lazing about.

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ

Naruto skipped through the village with a festival kitsune mask on his face, still under the disguise. The mask was askew, allowing him to eat the crunchy candied apple even while still wearing it. He had a notebook tucked under his arm. It was pink and shaped like a purse, with sakura patterns and a golden butterfly clasp. It matched his clothes and current appearance perfectly.

As he made his way through the festival, not looking affected by the fact that it was the annual commemoration of the Yondaime's sacrifice to save the village from the Kyūbi. Usually, this would be a day where he would hide out of the way. In the previous timeline, he would always dread this day. This day was the sole day of the year where every civilian would gather, banding together against the demon fox. In this timeline, he hardly ever went out during this time of the year so he only had to suffer on that day when he had just arrived.

It was his first time participating in the festival.

As Naruto walked through the streets, stopping here or there to play the games, a few invisible shadow clones appeared in front of him. Each of them had an identical pouch in hand. Naruto then ducked into an alleyway to escape the crowded area, discarding what remained of his candied apple in a nearby bin.

He opened the notebook to a section marked with a red Konoha symbol and started to pour the contents of the pouches onto the page labelled as 'civilian'. Names appeared on the page as each pouch was emptied over the page and the contents glowed briefly before it vanished into a name. The clones, with their task completed, would leave, each setting off in a different direction from before. Right when all the clones that had lined up in front of Naruto were gone, the next batch arrived.

He flipped to the next page, one labelled with the header of 'shinobi' and the sub-header of 'non-affiliated'. He started pouring the contents of the pouches onto this page as well. This was continued as the process repeated in a cycle and so on, all that was left were the 'Uchiha' and 'ANBU' pages. The 'ANBU' pages had been separated into 'ROOT' as well as the normal 'ANBU' forces.

The next batch of clones was sent to the ANBU HQ while Naruto headed to the Uchiha clan compound personally as the transparency of the clones covered him too. He wore white surgical gloves and made several rounds around the clan compound, walking up to every last person there whether male or female, young or old. He would take some of their hair or nails, putting it on the 'Uchiha' page as name after name appeared on the paper. He occasionally compared the names on the notebook with the contents of confidential documents (that he clearly shouldn't have had access to), making sure that he did not miss any. Whenever he noticed one, he would dispatch another invisible clone to search for that missing person before adding that person's DNA sample to their respective pages.

Soon, Naruto had completed his collection and was once again heading off.

He disappeared with a Hiraishin, appearing in a small town. Then he vanished again, appearing in yet another town where he disappeared. This process repeated until he found one of his two main targets sitting in a bar. He did not remove his invisibility jutsu, heading into the bar where he approached Senju Tsunade and stole some of her hair. He took the opportunity to also take some off Shizune as well when he noticed her storming towards her teacher, who was in the process of drowning herself in alcohol in broad daylight. Once done with his task, Naruto was gone like the wind as he then continued with his search.

That was probably where the question of just how there could be so many Hiraishin markers scattered around. Within Hi no Kuni alone were at least five thousand. Hi no Kuni was only just one of the Five Great Shinobi Countries, after all. There were still four more. How in the world did Naruto even manage to have proliferated his markers to every corner in the region? Moreover, how exactly he managed to keep track of these countless locations was also an important question.

The answer was: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu.

It was just as simple as that. He had made what could be considered an army (a total of one thousand to avoid catching too much attention actually) and sent them out to every last corner of the continent. They were sent to not only the Five Great Shinobi Countries but also to all the smaller territories that lied outside of them. He had placed one Hiraishin marker in every village and town regardless of their size or importance and would leave at least two in a larger city. He had even left many markers within completely unpopulated areas and, depending on the size of that location, would sometimes leave a few there. Those Hiraishin markers also generally had a teleportation range of a radius of a thousand metres around each matrix, thus allowing him to appear anywhere anytime.

As for how he kept track of them all, the answer lied in the fact that he was a jinchūriki. It would have been impossible for him to remember the coordinates of every marker. There were far too many for that. Moreover, every Hiraishin marker had to be different since each matrix could only correspond with one marker, lest he somehow teleported to several locations simultaneously, which would result in disastrous consequences. Therefore, besides an eidetic memory, one will also need to have the ability to organise one's mind.

Even though there were shinobi specialising in the mind, one good example of this being Konoha's Yamanaka clan, they could not restructure their mindscapes the way a jinchūriki could. Even so, the most important reason was simply the fact that Naruto was, well, Naruto. He was a unique, singular existence. Thus, only Naruto could put together such a flawless map of an entire continent. It showed every last detail of every single inch of the continent, including the underwater terrain. It was even in 3D. This was something that even Naruto had only managed to do with the support of the Tenseigan (it took much less effort to activate on its own once he had gotten the hang of it -- it even consumed less chakra than the Rinnegan).

The one-thousand-clone army took one year to finish traversing the land on foot before heading into the waters to network the terrain underwater as well. With the complex fūinjutsu array that synchronised the mind of each scout with ten clones that remained in Naruto's mindscape to record the landmarks and note the location of each marker, it took three years for the map to be completed. It was a humongous project that took over ten thousand clones and an immense investment of concentration, time and chakra to accomplish. Naruto had to dispel all the clones in the series in weekly cycles to prevent information overload. This was because, besides the ceaseless and systematic travel by the thousand clones that also used Tenseigan to scan everything in their vicinity, the clones within his mindscape working overtime to process all this information were perceiving time as ten times faster than the world Naruto was physically in.

He had started this project almost immediately after arriving back in the past (a buffer of half a year was needed to complete the preparations for this procedure -- the fūinjutsu array required and the chakra reserves needed to sustain the clones alike). To be able to begin as soon as possible, he had gambled to unseal 0.5% of his total chakra at once. Thankfully, he had been able to adjust to it without severe consequences.

To be fair, Naruto already got everything he needed within the first year of carrying out this plan. Afterwards, he left the matter to progress in the background with him hardly ever checking on it. He never forgot to replace the clones promptly, but he paid less attention to the progression of the map. He was only alerted after the map was completed. Even that was an occurrence from one year ago.

It was also then that Naruto discovered the forgotten ruins of an ancient civilisation that had passed innumerable years ago that was buried beneath the sands within the deepest waters of the sea. It had been massive, likely an empire, and spanned a territory broad enough to rival the entire continent where the Five Great Shinobi Countries were situated. It was over a thousand kilometres off the coast of Yuki no Kuni and it was only by luck that one of his clones discovered the ruins. The clone chanced across it when it drifted away from its assigned path.

Sixty-three towns, eleven cities and two hidden villages later, Naruto finally tracked down his target (the guy had been in Yugakure, of all places). He had never guessed that Jiraiya had would truly act in a perverted manner even when alone. From the beginning, Naruto had always assumed that Jiraiya's habit of observing women was a ruse. A disguise that cloaked him from the suspicions of others, enabling him to carry out his information gathering duties without being distracted by anything else.

Even so, for him to have an important contact in such an out-of-the-way place was unlikely. It was only an unimportant hidden village in one of many countries which bordered Hi no Kuni. If not for the fact that Hidan of the Akatsuki once belonged to Yu no Kuni, the country would have continued to be relatively unknown during the previous timeline. Hidan had defected long ago, but there must have still been something that made the eccentric man impossible to kill. He was an S rank missing-nin. It was strange that this nameless shinobi village had trained such a talent.

Yugakure no Sato was known as a hot springs paradise.

It was a hidden village but had a function much closer to a tourist hotspot. Yugakure was the only place where all hot springs were mixed genders. No one would stop anyone else from staring, no matter how indecent. In fact, younger women often giggled and winked back. The culture here was just that much more open.

For this reason, Naruto felt a bit conflicted as he walked towards the hot springs area with the appearance of a beautiful young woman. He had intended to openly walk over to Jiraiya to obtain it - the older man was too perceptive for him to consider using his invisibility jutsu. Despite knowing that, he felt sorely tempted to activate that jutsu now. Too many people had started to stare at him and it felt so awkward when everyone else was naked and bathing in the hot spring other than him...

He never had the chance to finish this train of thought.

Jiraiya stepped up to him with a charming smile that caused goosebumps to crawl over Naruto (because the sight somehow seemed to overlap with a memory of him wearing a lecherous grin instead). He felt a little creeped out, but quietly stole several strands of hair instead of running far, far away like he was slightly tempted to. Recalling a distant memory about himself ghost-writing an Icha Icha book without anyone noticing (it sold more wildly than any of Jiraiya's other works), then a memory of eating ramen with Jiraiya and another of dragging Jiraiya away to stop him from harassing any more women, Naruto felt his resolve begin to weaken. Instead of trying to escape, he remained where he was.

Jiraiya had been a hero.

Naruto had wanted to make sure that he would be remembered that way too. He wanted every child of the future generation to know of Jiraiya and about the sacrifice he made. He wished all will know of the significance of the information which had been brought back at the expense of Jiraiya's life. He had felt that Jiraiya deserved nothing less than to be remembered as a hero, not inferior to the four Hokage that once led Konohagakure no Sato and had sacrificed their lives to protect it. However, that world did not survive past the war. That wish could never be fulfilled.

That was why Naruto felt like he owed it to Jiraiya.

Jiraiya, who had pursued Tsunade's heart to no avail; who never had anything with the love of his life. Though Naruto did not quite know what it was like to love anyone romantically, he did know that he cherished his precious friends. He treated them as his family. Was that love that they spoke of not supposed to run even deeper than familial affection? If so, he understood just how painful it must have been. Jiraiya's feelings had always been known to her. Complacency was what had stopped her from responding. He had always been there and she had taken it for granted. That was until the day that Jiraiya was no longer in this world finally came. He knew that she had grieved then. She grieved as a friend and regretted not being able to do so as something more. She had felt that it was her fault for not giving Jiraiya the something that he needed to ground him, that she was why he had not seen fit to protect his life.

Perhaps she was. That was what Naruto never spoke aloud but always knew. He had wanted to make everything right in this life. Including Tsunade and Jiraiya's relationship. He would never allow his godfather to die on him again. He had an added advantage this time around. It was something that only one that hailed from a time in the future would have.

He knew the future. Even if much has changed, the gist of it was still the same. He believed that just like how Orochimaru would pursue Sasuke for his immortality jutsu, Jiraiya would foolishly go to stake out Nagato once more. It could only fall upon Naruto to stop him this time around.

It was with these thoughts running through his mind that Naruto finally spoke, "Hello, mister. My name is Naru. What is yours?"

The voice that Naruto spoke with was completely different from his usual. It was sweet and lilting with a soft touch of feminine charm. Even his manner of speech was different. He did not want Jiraiya to somehow put two and two together to figure out that it was Naruto who had been the girl he met in Yugakure. That would have been beyond awkward.

Jiraiya grinned, flashing his teeth in a bright smile. "I'm Jiraiya the Gallant! I'm one of the Legendary Sannin, the Toad Sage!"

Naruto blinked, feeling a little speechless. That was the truth. Naruto knew that, so how in the world did it sound like empty boasting when Jiraiya said it aloud? It was no wonder that all women thought him a fraud. Otherwise, the number of ladies willing to get together with someone as powerful as Jiraiya would long have shot through the roof.

"Are you here regarding Hidan of the Akatsuki?" Naruto had to ask.

Jiraiya's jaw dropped.

"You know Shion-san?" he asked in surprise.

Naruto shook his head. "No, but only he could bring Jiraiya-san to someplace as rural as this."

Naruto honestly felt a little stunned.

Was Jiraiya's information network that thorough that he had even found out about Hidan so early on? He could have sworn that nothing like this had happened the previous time. Did this mean that things have changed? Did the world perhaps have a chance of fending off Akatsuki this time? Previously, it was since the Akatsuki had employed a surprise attack using guerrilla tactics that the shinobi countries simply had no way to retaliate against them. If Jiraiya managed to spread his knowledge about Akatsuki's motives...

...but Naruto's hopes were dashed.

"I still have no idea why he would head for a peaceful organisation like Akatsuki, though. It's not like I have not looked into it, but that S-rank organisation does not seem to have any intention of stirring up the current system. I feel a little scared when I think about just what kind of leader could rein in that fellow. All they do is complete unfavourable missions for a certain price," Jiraiya remarked.

Naruto frowned, feeling a little troubled by how forthright Jiraiya was being. "Is it alright to tell all of that to someone that you just met? I may even have bad intentions towards you, you know?"

Jiraiya chuckled. "I wouldn't worry about that. I don't believe that Naru-chan is such a person. You are a nice girl, aren't you?"

Naruto felt a little uncomfortable at how Jiraiya spoke his name.

Perhaps the name he opted for on the spur of the moment was too similar to his actual name.

"I don't know anything about that," mumbled Naruto as he avoided looking Jiraiya in the eye.

Jiraiya chuckled and pat Naruto's head.

"Little Naru-chan, you remind me of a student I once had. You certainly look quite different, but you give off the same sort of feeling. Say, would you like to be my student?" he spoke, looking a little wistful.

Naruto bit his lip.

He would have liked to accept, but he could not do so. Besides, Jiraiya would eventually arrive in Konoha. In the first place, there was nothing Naruto could learn from him anyway. To stay in Yugakure to receive Jiraiya's tutelage would be a complete waste of time.

Pushing his sentimental emotions aside, Naruto shook his head and lied easily, "I already have a teacher."

Jiraiya shook his head, clearly feeling a little bewildered. "I'm one of the Sannin. You would not be at a loss if you left your current teacher. It is a natural course of action that you cannot even be blamed for, but you still choose not to do so?"

Naruto nodded mutely.

Jiraiya sighed, but a smile still worked its way onto his face. "That isn't too bad either. It's a good thing to be loyal to one's teacher."

Naruto smiled slightly. "Then I will bid farewell to you here, Jiraiya-san. I do hope to see you again someday."

With that said, Naruto walked off in a leisurely manner. Yet once he was out of sight, he used Hiraishin while getting changed and returning to his usual form. In the end, nothing had gone as expected, but it was fine. He supposed that meeting Jiraiya like this was not a bad thing either. He did not regret disguising himself, but did Jiraiya usually try to convince girls to become his apprentices?

Naruto felt a little dubious. Even he had to use a henge the first time to get Jiraiya to teach him during the chūnin exam period. It would not be strange at all if Jiraiya asked every pretty young girl to become his apprentice.

If so, Naruto honestly felt that his title as Jiraiya's student was just a little too cheap.

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ

Naruto then stopped by several locations to collect more samples of various individuals, including Orochimaru and Kabuto in Otogakure, the Akatsuki members both current and future, Utakata, Yagura and the entire Seven Swordsmen of Kirigakure, alongside many other important characters from all over the continent. It included both enemies and allies alike and at the end of it, Naruto had a collection thicker than any bingo book. He had collected samples from literally everyone deserving of note.

With that task complete, he inserted the key he wore at his neck into the keyhole of the door of a small shed in the backyard of an abandoned house. The door opened to a place that was simply unrealistically larger than the interior of a shed. Despite this, the interior instantly shrank back into its logical size the moment Naruto passed through the doorway and vanished.

Naruto now stood alone in the Workshop.

He headed to a lab that was installed next to Sasori's workshop and flipped open his notebook (which had somehow turned into a normal leather-bound book just as Naruto transformed back from his disguised form). It fell to the page with the rows of names of the Uchiha clan members and Naruto began to insert their DNA samples into the capsules that were vaguely human-sized which had been set up already. He did not stop until one hair or nail sample from each Uchiha had been placed in a fluid-filled capsule. By the time he was finished, a ball of embryonic tissue had already started to form in the first few capsules and even those continued to grow at a fast pace.

Naruto had only just put the notebook down on the only desk in the whole lab (the remainder of possible surfaces were cupboards and dissection tables he did not feel like leaving his notebook on) when the door to his lab was opened.

"Naruto?" Sasori spoke up, a little hesitant as he looked around the lab with an odd look on his face.

Sasori's gaze eventually settled on the capsules that each contained a single growing lump that was suspended in a clear fluid.

"I was wondering where this lab had come from and what it was for. So it was yours," he spoke absently after a moment, feeling a strange sort of attraction from the process as each embryo gradually started to take a slightly grotesque shape that did not look anything like a human.

"Sasori," Naruto greeted.

"What are those things?" Sasori muttered as his eyes continued to scan each capsule.

The strange creatures within looked similar to one another, yet also slightly different. It was a similar feeling as to how no two leaves would be completely identical. It was the feeling of nature. Each one was unique, which confused Sasori. This was an artificial procedure, so how could it seem like whatever those things were was part of a natural process?

"Fetuses," Naruto replied simply.

"What's that?" Sasori queried, finding it all a bit bizarre.

"Simply put, these are babies that are about... two months old now," Naruto explained, giving an estimate of their age if they were not grown in his lab but within their mothers' wombs instead.

"So humans look like this when we're still not yet born?" Sasori confirmed, feeling stunned. "I never knew that we were so... ugly."

Naruto laughed, not seeming offended as he manually set the age at which the rapid growth would be stopped. They were adjusted such that they would grow to the same age as their original bodies. Afterwards, they will no longer be subjected to accelerated time and would grow in synchrony with their originals.

"Well, these are clones of all the Uchiha in Konoha at the moment," Naruto explained even as he thought of something and picked up his notebook again.

"So you can form a perfect replica of the physical body of anyone you want?" Sasori asked to confirm.

"That's right," Naruto replied with a smirk, "any particular requests? I can even raise it to have a similar level of strength as the original, but that takes longer and requires more effort since that would mean I have to supervise its growth, but it's not as if that's anything that a shadow clone or two cannot fix."

"If so, I want Senju Hashirama," Sasori said immediately, as though not needing any time to deliberate over the question.

Naruto's eyebrows furrowed.

"A most challenging request," he lamented. "I have no idea where to find samples of his DNA from. His body probably has nothing left. With how much has been taken for experimentation, I would be more surprised if there was anything useful amongst what they did not already strip off of him."

"Get the cells from that Zetsu thing. There's a good half of him that's still a genetic clone of Hashirama, isn't there?" Kurama spoke up, slightly bored.

Naruto felt like smacking himself in the forehead.

That was right. How did he never think of that? It had truly been staring right in his face. He even had easy access with the Venus flytrap regularly visiting his other blood clone Akihiko. Resolving himself to remember next time...

...actually, he might as well do it now.

Naruto left his Uchiha Obito sample in another capsule together with a shadow clone to 'raise' it and immediately started transforming into the form that he had used for the clone that he had sent on that infiltration mission. He had the clone report back to him and was very pleased to discover that Zetsu had left behind a servant-type Hashirama clone made out of Shiro which had little intelligence and would not even inform Zetsu of any changes. Thus, he used the Hiraishin no Jutsu to get near the base that Zetsu had chosen and used a Kawarimi to swap places with Akihiko without the white Zetsu-clone even noticing. Then it was a simple matter to obtain the DNA samples he needed -- he put it into the array on his notebook and it indeed registered as 'Senju Hashirama'.

Naruto then swapped his blood clone Akihiko back into the hideout and used Hiraishin to return to his lab in Sasori's Workshop. He left the DNA in another capsule with another clone to supervise it. He also winked at the confused Sasori and jabbed a finger at the clone, which immediately understood its creator's intentions and started to explain what it was doing.

With that settled, Naruto teleported to the ruin that he had discovered thanks to one runaway clone (though it had only drifted away because it noticed something strange). Who needed air to breathe when one had so much chakra that they could not possibly die from suffocation? In the first place, having the Sanbi within him was enough to aid him in underwater movement. With the help of Isobu, he easily swept away the mass of sand with a massive whirlpool. He did not even have to make use of his chakra. The sand was sent away, not even causing a disturbance.

Before doing anything, Naruto activated his Rinne Tenseigan to avoid any unexpected disturbances during his exploration. Now he wondered how he had never put two and two together before. He never heard of the Rinnegan enabling a 360° field of vision, so just how did he not guess that it was related to the Byakugan? However, as soon as he activated it, he noticed something that seemed to shine like a beacon due to the intensity of the chakra that was encompassed within it. It was so far away that even the glow seemed to be but a pinprick in the distance, but it was undoubtedly there.

He used Hiraishin to its limits, disappearing and reappearing at the other end of its radius as he travelled five hundred kilometres at once in the direction of the beacon of chakra. Even then, he did not seem to have gotten any closer. Naruto knew that he had travelled a long distance, but it was still far from enough if he wished to reach the source of that ridiculous amount of chakra that was so far away from him.

"Isobu," he spoke aloud, "how long do you think it will take for me to get there if the two of us worked together and make all effort possible to get to that object as fast as possible with my current limits?"

"At least two whole years. That is if we rush the whole way, not resting the whole time," replied Isobu. "Since it's like that, you're way better off forgetting about getting there."

However, Naruto had stopped listening as soon as he heard Isobu's estimate.

"If I used my Hiraishin no Jutsu instead, I can probably cut that time to about half," Naruto mused to himself, "but that's still too long. It won't be possible for me to spend such a long time away from Konoha. I still have plenty of affairs to handle. Besides, the deadline for the Uchiha clan massacre was this year. I can still have my clones go back to settle that for me, but there's a limit to how much I could handle with just clones. I might as well fix up a better seal that'll allow me to truly teleport for long distances. It will not be like the ones I made to transport large groups and cargo or the ones I made to be used in battle with short processing time. I don't mind even if it takes longer as long as it can bring me anywhere I want to go."

With this new inspiration in mind, Naruto made to sit down and start working on the seal array that would be required for the teleportation technique that he had envisioned. Yet before he could even start, he discovered that something within the semi-collapsed building that he was standing on glowed with chakra. This surprised him and made him feel a little curious about just what these were. For there to be such odd items in this barren place that had been buried beneath the sands and had even lied forgotten for countless years was simply mystical. How in the world did the artefact below him last for so long?

Naruto carefully dug his way down and made a small entrance from what must have once been a window and swam inside the hollow space to reach the glowing item. It was a slip made from a strange white mineral. He brushed aside the dirt and realised with a start that it was jade. If it was jade, how could it remain so spotless for such a length of time? Naruto felt dumbstruck. Beneath the rectangular slip was a circular disk made of metal and ivory which had the faintest resemblance to a fūinjutsu matrix.

The more he looked at it, the more he felt his horizons broaden. Every time he looked over it, he noticed something a little different about it that made it so much better than conventional fūinjutsu. It was more efficient, concise and less restricted by individual characters. It was also for this reason that each stroke was even more complex. Every indentation, each swoop and every loop seemed to be filled with meaning, to the extent where each stroke almost appeared to contain the mysteries of the world within it. Even each thin groove seemed to mean a little more than mere cracks due to age. It almost seemed like it was just yesterday that the strange array disk was abandoned.

He carefully picked up the jade slip and was then surprised by what he saw.

There were strange metallic weapons with barrels shown on diagrams that projected themselves into his mind, some of which had projectiles and some did not. If Naruto had not been from the Elemental Continent where the Five Great Shinobi Countries were located, he might have known what these weapons were. After all, they simply were not a part of his world.

Firearms. It was a jade slip containing records of blueprints that showed exactly how to construct various types of firearms and seemingly belonged to a far more mechanised world. The strangest part, however, was that a majority of them required chakra for their use. There were pistols, rifles, cannons and all sorts of firearms, but they all had one thing in common -- they did not operate using gunpowder, but chakra. Even if it was a weapon that required ammunition, chakra was needed to activate it. Thus, these were weapons made to be used within this world.

Naruto did not think of all these things, but he had realised the usefulness of the new weapon type that he had just discovered. Firearms were murder weapons that can enable a green genin to kill a proper jōnin as long as they could catch the jōnin by surprise. They required chakra for their operation, but seals could be used instead and the ammunition weapons required little to function.

He filed away the knowledge for future use and stowed the jade slip into his pocket dimension. He also felt a fair bit of interest in this method of storing information. Then he sat next to the array disk and finally started to try to decipher its contents. He had a feeling that it was going to be incredibly useful to him.

ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ

"Is this the work of fate?" Naruto asked himself, feeling completely stunned.

The array disk that he now held in his hands was...

"...a teleportation circle?" Naruto muttered, lost in thought.

It even had coordinates recorded on it already.

Naruto had deciphered the code in which these coordinates were keyed in and was pleasantly surprised by its simplicity and innovativeness. It was a system that would work whether it was within the universe that he was in or even outside it. As long as he had the coordinates, he would be able to go anywhere with it. However, it was no longer functional.

Despite this fact, Naruto was elated.

He had learned everything there was to know about making a teleportation circle from it and now knew exactly how he could improve on the original array now. More importantly, he knew that he had progressed a lot on his path as a fūinjutsu master. After learning everything there was to know about conventional seals within the modern system, he finally found an area where he was lacking. He could, at last, be able to make some more progress as a Master of Seals. He could reinforce his fundamentals and fuse the essence of modern fūinjutsu with ancient fūinjutsu to create something new. He could integrate them to form something out of the best features of both and thus make a new and unique form of seal arts that would be his exclusively. This idea thrilled Naruto, who had always been more passionate about fūinjutsu than any other shinobi art.

He activated his prototype teleportation circle and was right in front of the blazing beacon he had seen from so far away within no more than ten minutes.

He felt a little confused at the sight of the giant egg that was almost the same height as himself but was even more pleased. He had reached it at last. A goal that should have taken him an entire year of endless effort had been easily accomplished in just a few weeks.

Now seeking to take his prize, Naruto touched a palm to the large egg which contained chakra so intense and immense that could be seen from millions of kilometres away.

However, when he touched the surface of the egg, the most bizarre thing happened.

All the chakra that had been sealed within this strange egg rushed right into him and strangely, his body did not feel as though it was going to explode (which was what it had felt like the last time when he forcibly unsealed his chakra). It instead felt warm. It was as wonderful as a cool oasis in the middle of a blazing desert. He felt like drowning in this sensation.

Naruto honestly had no idea what was going on because he could feel his very essence change, becoming something that was neither more nor less but simply different.

When it finally finished, Mugetsu spoke up.

"Say, Naruto. How would you react if I were to tell you that you're no longer human?"