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A SAGE ADRIFT

#16

Naruto was currently waiting in the meeting room for Emma. He had been told that she had some information for him that would interest him. He knew what it was going to be.

She was aware that he was not going to leave Friends of Humanity alone, not after all that had happened. He was now going to make sure that it was dismantled thoroughly, down to its last member but he was also aware that this was not the Elemental Nations and he could not just go around asking for justice for everyone just by the virtue of his power.

Things didn’t work that way here. Bureaucracy, something that was used for the benefit of the people was used here to chain the same people. He would have to go through so many heaps of bureaucracy that by the time he would have gotten the first person convicted, the entire organisation would have changed names and continued where they had left off and he would be left standing there with nothing but a single expendable person convicted as a scapegoat. He would have had to start over again if he wanted to catch anybody else and that was not realistic, no matter how long-lived he might be.

So, the next best course of action would be to use the resources of another organisation with similar strength to destroy that organisation. That was a slippery slope in and of itself because how would he ensure that the people he helped destroy Friends of Humanity would not turn out to be even worse than them?

Because of questions like these, he was frustrated and in his frustration, his mind went back to the Elemental Nations and everything that must be happening there, further worsening his mood. That led him to meditate in the waiting room, hoping that they would just awaken him should the need arise.

“Um, Naruto, Sir?”

He didn’t know how much time had passed before he felt somebody speak something. Exhaling heavily, he opened his eyes to see that nobody was present in the room. He looked around in confusion only to hear the voice again, coming from the speakers this time.

“Um, Sir?”

“Yes?”

“Sir, Miss Frost is busy at the moment so she will not be able to accompany you. If you want, can I have someone accompany you back to your quarters?”

After thinking it over for a moment, Naruto nodded and then replied vocally because he was not sure if there were cameras in the room or not, “Sure.”

“Okay,” The voice hesitantly replied. One thing he had noticed in the short period he had been in the base was that almost everybody, from the support staff to the janitors to even the team members were deathly afraid of him.

He didn’t know why because he was not someone who would just go on assaulting someone on a whim. He supposed that beating the Juggernaut did count as an achievement but it was not like he was in a good condition after the fight. If it was not for Emma, he would probably be apprehended by the authorities and then chucked into some deep dark government cell, waiting to be experimented on or recover from his injuries, whichever came first.

He was more than aware of the policies of the US government that led to all their encounters with all the enhanced people. It was usually them assaulting and detaining the person, usually denying them every single right that was usually afforded to their normal citizens. Then, they are taken to some remote site for “interrogation”, where they are never seen or heard from ever again.

“I guess the Ancient One could have helped me but that is still a big leap of faith to take for someone you had met for a couple of hours only,” Naruto muttered before he heard the door knocking so he went ahead and opened it.

Outside, waiting for him was one of the support staff who was supposed to escort him back to his quarters.

“Um, Hello? I am supposed to take you back to your quarters. My name is Jake if that helps.”

“Yeah, thank you for that. This place is so huge I could easily get lost. By the way, how did Emma build this huge place in such a hostile environment?” He questioned her as they kept walking purely as a way to pass the time and break the silence.

“Oh, I guess I never asked anyone that. I was more concerned with my paycheck than how people with powers built a place that would have been impossible to build even with modern machinery. Also, I don’t think I have the necessary clearance level for that.” Jake replied, not even missing a beat as he fast-walked in front of Naruto.

Fair enough, Naruto mused to himself as he easily matched the pace of Jake as he hastily tried to get rid of Naruto.

“Thank you for escorting…me,” Naruto said but before he could properly thank Jake, he bowed and left in a hurry, as if he was escaping from Naruto.

Really, people could be so weird sometimes.

Sighing, Naruto closed the door behind him and looked at his quarters. However, calling them just quarters would be doing them an injustice. It was more like a luxurious penthouse than just a staff quarter. He had a sneaking suspicion that this place was probably reserved for more important people, like Emma herself because it was even bigger than his house back home, which housed 4 people with…ease.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Ah, he missed home. He wondered how everything was going back home. It sucked not knowing the status of his village, his best friend, his teacher, and his family.

He sighed audibly and chose to take a nap in the undoubtedly luxuriously comfortable bed that was waiting for him in the Master Bedroom and as he opened the door, yup, it was luxurious alright. He just hoped that it allowed him to sleep for a while because ever since he came to this new reality, his sleep schedule had been fucked seven ways to Sunday.

…..

…

..

“So, what is the verdict here, Sona?” Emma asked as she paced in the medical room, waiting for reports about all the tests they had conducted on Shaw ever since she had ordered him to sleep. It was disturbingly easy for her to even control his body functions now. Functions that should have been autonomous could now easily be controlled by her. She could probably even order him to stop breathing and he would have no choice but to comply. As much fun as it would undoubtedly be, it worried her far more about the possibilities of such artifacts existing outside of the domain of the Ancient One and the far more scary possibility of such a thing being used on her as well. She would have to talk to her, scarce as they may be, contacts in the sorcerer community and figure out if such things exist and if they do, inform the Ancient One about the existence of such things because she was not sure she trusted anyone with that level of power.

Not even herself and it was funny because ever since she had gotten her powers, she had been manipulating people without any guilt but in this situation, it bothered her to actually control people without using her powers. She had checked her mental shields more than once to see if the Ancient One had somehow cast a spell on her mind without her noticing but failed to find any signs of any tampering with her mental state. Even if the Ancient One was immortal and over a thousand years old, she should still be working with the laws of psionic manipulation rather than bypassing them altogether. However, what would she know when compared to a person who had over a thousand years to perfect their craft?

Emma sighed audibly. All this thinking was getting her nowhere. She had to figure out exactly what had happened to Shaw but she was pretty sure that she was not going to get any answer out of the most advanced tech that she had on hand at the moment.

Just as she predicted, “I am sorry Ms.Frost but there is nothing wrong with Mr.Shaw here, at least from what I am able to glean from the data.” The lab tech said before she dismissed him and left the medical room after giving orders for Shaw to be under a strict lockdown with no one going in or out of his quarters.

She was sure he could survive a couple of days without food and water.

She had a more important person to attend to, at the moment but the matter with Shaw had already diverted her attention too much. She had already been informed that Naruto had retired to his chambers and from the data they were getting from the motion sensors in his quarters, he was already sound asleep. So, she decided to get something over with before she went to sleep.

Coming to her office, she took a seat at the table and called someone she had no interest in talking to but had to tolerate because of their somewhat shared goals.

“Hello, Charles. Let’s talk about Mr.Uzumaki and why you should steer clear of him.”

….

…

…

“What did she say, Charles?” Charles Xavier sighed as Logan asked him.

What could he answer?

They did not adequately stress the importance to Naruto for the threat that they expressly warned him about. He had no idea that Cain of all people would be there.

If he did, he would have been the first person on the farm because he had lost track of his stepbrother a while ago and had been searching for him ever since.

Juggernaut, for all the wrong reasons, was a threat that needed to be actively contained. His being unleashed in the middle of a civilian area was something that could not be forgiven. It being done by the terrorist group Friends of Humanity was even more terrifying. It meant that their suspicions that they had had for a long time were true. There was someone or multiple someone in the government, high up the chain, that were supporting the terrorist group otherwise it would have been impossible for them to acquire Cain on their lonesome.

It would seem that he would have to contact Eric again for this. They might have their differences but he could not, in the right conscience, leave something like this up to fate.

While he might not like Eric’s methods in dealing with their respective enemies, he could not deny the effectiveness of those. It’s just that while that method did succeed in getting rid of their enemies, it also rid them of whatever little goodwill they had gained with the government instantly.

Nowadays, even getting someone from the government on the phone without a threat is a chore and a half. A chore that could not be left to anyone else as nobody other than him was equipped to deal with politicians.

His powers and the experience that came with his age made him a perfect candidate to deal with the political side of things. But there were some things that no one with a sane mind would admit to in the government, no matter the threats he could issue.

It was the fact that the government actively dealt with detainment and then used mutants as weapons.

For that, he would need pure muscle and even then, it might not be enough.

Hmm, maybe he would have to approach Mr.Uzumaki, after all. Despite Emma’s warnings, she had not actually been forthcoming as to exactly why Naruto was of such importance and why they had to make sure he was firmly on the side of mutant-kind.

From what he had seen from the suppressed memories of the survivors of that incident (Emma did a good job but he had been doing it a lot longer than her), Mr.Uzumaki was someone with multiple powers. Something that should have been impossible naturally but he was not aware of any recent project that had the potential of creating someone like him.

The other thing was that Mr.Uzumaki never registered as a mutant to any of his senses or even to Cerebro.

That left the question, Who exactly was Mr.Uzumaki?

“Charles..Charles?”

“Um, Yes, Logan?”

“What is on your mind?”

“Nothing much, just thinking of our blue-eyed whiskered friend.”

“Ah, I don't think he thinks of us as friends, Charles,” Logan said while rolling his eyes and his wheelchair out of his office.

Word Count - 2144

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I already have up to 8 extra chapters ahead there and will continue to add more as time passes.

P.S. - Sorry for the delay in posting chapters. I was busy with bank chores.

Toodaloo!