“All right,” Naruto said once he exposed Sarada’s mutated Sharingan and took his hand away from her head. “You can now keep your eyes active as you go through the contents of these sheets. I am going to keep sharing my chakra with you.” There were no visible differences, but Naruto’s clone had formed a temporary bridge between his and Sarada’s chakra, allowing him to give her as much chakra as she would need. Of course, it was only going to last until she stayed close to him, after that, the connection would break.
“Will you be all right bearing such a load, Seventh-sama?” Sarada couldn’t help but ask with an almost naive look in her eyes that made Naruto chuckle. At that moment, she felt a foreign emotion affecting her. Confidence. Boundless confidence that bordered on arrogance. She took a moment to recognize the source — Naruto, it was his confidence in himself that she was feeling.
“The chakra I’m giving to you, Sarada, isn’t even a tiny drop in my reserves,” Naruto said before thinking of something. “Haven’t you seen the reenactment of the fourth war?”
Sarada recalled the scene where it was depicted that during the fight against the ten-tails, the Seventh Hokage was the one to share his chakra with all of the shinobi forces of the five villages — protecting thousands of people with his chakra. She suddenly blushed as the embarrassment hit her. She realized that she had told the man who could cover thousands of shinobi with his chakra and protect them that she might consume too much of his chakra.
“I-I am going to get to work, Hokage sama ...” Sarada said, quickly turning her head and looking at the next document. Moments later, she was forced to put it down as she felt as if she was disconnected from her body, “Woah …” She leaned back, blinking rapidly.
Naruto looked over at her, “Everything okay, kid?” He gently rubbed her back, to calm her down.
“It–it’s a weird feeling,” Sarada said. “Maybe it’s because of your chakra, but I feel the same as how I felt when I first awakened my Sharingan. I feel like my body is moving slower than it should and when I try to make it move faster, the strain makes me feel like I’m about to faint.”
“It’s because of my chakra,” Naruto said. “It has many healing and enhancement properties. Seems it has also increased the effectiveness of your Sharingan. Just give it a minute, you’ll get used to the change.” He knew the real reason behind Sarada’s perception change. His chakra might have enhanced her dōjutsu, yes, but it wouldn’t be to such an extent. He wanted to tell her the real reason, but according to the original’s instruction, now wasn’t the time for her to know about it. That was why he only allowed her mutated Sharingan to reveal itself in his presence and suppressed it at other times.
The clone shook his head, focusing on the document that he was previously reading. As for Sarada, she refocused her eyes and waved her hands around for a few seconds to get a feel of her enhanced perception. It took her a little less than a minute and she was back to reading the document.
“Much better,” She mumbled as she quickly skimmed through it in moments.
“It’s a reexamination request about a health violation from one of the restaurants, Seventh-sama,” Sarada spoke.
“Mhm,” Naruto nodded, grabbing it to put his signature on it. By the time he was done, Sarada gave him the summary for the next document, making him raise a brow in appreciation since all he had to do was to give his chakra to Sarada so that she could keep her Sharingan active.
‘This might just be the most beneficial part of making her my disciple. The original should’ve employed Sasuke for this kind of work ages ago …’
…
As the main body and clones were working things out in Konoha, another of Naruto’s clones was on a small expedition outside the village. His destination? The Land of Whirlpools.
‘Normally, it would take me more than a day to get to the Land of Whirlpools itself, let alone look for the ruins of Uzu. And I don’t really have that kind of time.’
Naruto’s clone continued crossing the treetops quickly as he started to concentrate on his surroundings. Within moments, his eyelids and the sides of his eyes gained a deep orange hue that extended halfway down to his cheeks and his irises turned a lighter shade of the same orange as his pupils became horizontal like toads.
‘It’s insane how quickly I can access Sage Mode. And while moving … nay running no less. How in the world did the original learn this in that empty void with no natural energy in the environment?’
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Despite his curiosity, the clone wasn’t privy to the details of many of Naruto’s plans and abilities. The man only gave his clones what he knew they would need and nothing more. For example, this clone knew that Naruto had mutated Sarada’s Sharingan to resemble the Uzumaki crest, but he didn’t know the process of how the mutation was induced. Only the clone who mutated Sarada’s eyes knew that particular method — along with the original, of course. That was how all of Naruto’s clones were functioning ever since he turned back time. They all had selective memories and skills that they truly needed and nothing extra.
With Sage Mode activated, Naruto’s speed skyrocketed despite not using Kurama’s chakra at the moment. The fox in question was still half asleep, having delved into Naruto’s memories of his time in the timeless dimension of the Daikokuten, and wasn’t going to respond for a day or so more.
At his current speed and the constantly activated Sage Mode, it only took Naruto’s clone a few hours to reach a cliff that was overlooking the sea. He could see the small silhouette of an island on the horizon and recognized it as his destination — The Land of Whirlpools. At his left, he could see the mountain ranges continuing toward the north, eventually leading to the Land of Hot Water which housed Yugakure, one of the only pacifist ninja villages in the world. As for Naruto’s right, eventually, the cliffs lowered down to the main coastal line of the village. He could even see a shipyard in the distance with two ships docked. Following the long beach that extended all along the coastline, one could reach the southern part of the Land of Fire. It was a unique location where the seasons were the opposite of what they found in the rest of the world. It would be summer for the world while the southern belt of Konoha would be experiencing mild winter weather.
Naruto shook his head, pulling himself away from his thoughts of the geographical nature of his country. Focusing his chakra to move in a certain way, he whispered, “Water.” A huge rose right beside the cliff, the water reaching all the way up to Naruto as he stepped forward, standing on the water platform that he’d created. As the wave dispersed, leaving a wet cliffside, Naruto disappeared with it.
‘This is so cool …’ The clone felt the ocean wind slapping his face as he rode the massive wave that he’d pulled up using natural chakra. For a normal person, the speed at which Naruto was traveling would be enough to leave burn marks on the skin, but he was built differently as the fast winds hitting his face merely felt like a breeze to him.
By the time Naruto was three-quarters of the way there, he started to feel the strain on his chakra as it started to become difficult to maintain the wave that he was riding. The culprit for the strain wasn’t insufficient chakra — he was using Sage Mode to control the natural chakra in the water directly. The problem was that the waters around the Land of Whirlpools were extremely turbulent, making the journey there almost hellish despite it being a country in and of itself. Despite that, there were certain routes that one could pass through to get to the village by boat. One merely needed to know the way there. This was a natural protection for the country that allowed them to grow so peacefully and get through the Second World War almost unaffected.
The only reason that Uzushiogakure and the Land of Whirlpools, as a whole were destroyed, was that it took a unanimous partnership between three ninja villages — Sunagakura, Kumogakure, and Iwagakure. They even had a tacit deal with Konoha for them not to interfere. Even with all those advantages, the three villages had to spend an unfathomable amount of resources to even get to the island. Almost all of the benefits that they had gained from Kirigakure’s concession after the village backed out of the Third Ninja War were spent on the raid on Uzushiogakure.
Naruto grunted as he encountered a huge whirlpool that caught his tide, causing him to be stuck in it, “Grr!” He growled annoyedly, feeling a sense of aggression as he focused his chakra on his feet and created two water bullets right under his feet. He instantly shot out of the whirlpool at an angle, making sure that he covered more horizontal distance and didn’t end up going too high. Before he landed on the water, he took control of another mass of water and turned it into a wave that he could ride to the shores of the island.
Passing through a few more obstacles, Naruto finally reached the Land of Whirlpools which, despite being a country in the past, was no more than a somewhat large island. Finally, Naruto’s wave slowly got weaker and dropped him off at the beach.
“Let’s make haste,” He spoke to himself. “I don’t want to reminisce about how my mother’s original home was destroyed and ransacked almost half a century ago.”
As Naruto passed the beach, he was quick to find a forest. Without any people to maintain the land, a large number of trees had sprouted all over the island. On his way, he noticed some faint remnants of the previous war that had survived despite how long it had been.
“These shells are similar to the ones that we used to almost destroy the moon a few years past,” Naruto examined the spherical ball of a specific metal that he identified to only be found in the Land of Lightning. “Doubtlessly, a much weaker version of the same weapon. They probably bombarded the country from ships that were anchored far away from the island first.”
‘This would’ve been such a beautiful place had it survived … Kaa-chan could’ve brought me here for the holidays to show me around and explain my ancestry to me.’
He also ran past the remnants of what used to be villages in the past. Many trees now covered the supposed cleared land, even growing out of the houses that had been made in the past. But the signs of the village’s presence were clear. Moving further, Naruto finally reached a Landmark according to the map that the original had given him. It was an old, almost decrepit statue of the seal of the Land of Whirlpools. But it allowed him to identify his location according to his map.
‘Now, onto Uzu.’