Before initiating the dimensional transfer, Naruto wanted information. Jumping blind into unknown worlds was how people got killed, and despite his strength, he'd learned enough from Shi Hao to know that arrogance was a fast track to humiliation.
"System," Naruto said, settling into a meditation pose in his training clearing, "can you give me detailed information about this world? Parameters, power levels, major threats, political structure?"
[Where would be the fun in that?] the System replied, and Naruto could swear he heard amusement in its tone. [I'll tell you this much: it's a parallel timeline of your ninja world. The general development follows similar patterns to your reality, but certain key events diverged. Think of it as a possible future, one of many potential outcomes.]
"The future world," Naruto repeated slowly, testing the concept. His own world, but years ahead. "How far in the future?"
[Approximately fifteen to twenty years from your current point. You'll recognize the framework—Konoha still exists, the five great nations persist, the fundamental power structures remain similar. But the details...] The System paused meaningfully. [Those will surprise you.]
"Surprise me how?"
[You'll see. Consider it a learning experience.]
Naruto frowned at the evasiveness but didn't press. The System had its own methods, its own reasons for withholding information. Sometimes that was pedagogical. Sometimes it was just the System being cryptic for its own entertainment.
"Fine," Naruto decided. "I don't have anything pressing here. Shikamaru's handling village administration, my friends are training, Jiraiya's bedridden for at least another week. Now's as good a time as any."
[Excellent!] The System's enthusiasm was palpable. [Initiating dimensional transfer. Your physical body will be transported to the target world. Time dilation will be maintained at a ratio favorable to your home dimension. Are you ready?]
"Ready."
[Then I wish you a pleasant journey, young Naruto. And remember: maintain a happy mood. You'll need it.]
That last comment should have been a warning, but Naruto didn't have time to analyze it before reality twisted.
The sensation of dimensional travel was difficult to describe. Like falling and flying simultaneously. Like his atoms were being individually counted and transported one by one. Like reality itself was a curtain being pulled aside to reveal the stage beyond.
Color. Sound. Gravity.
Everything snapped back into focus, and Naruto found himself suspended in mid-air, perhaps fifty meters above ground level. Below him spread a village that was simultaneously familiar and alien.
Konoha, Naruto recognized immediately. The layout matched his memory—the general arrangement of districts, the flow of streets, even the position of landmarks. But the details were wrong. The architecture had changed. Buildings that should have been wood and stone were now concrete and glass. Structures that didn't exist in his time rose toward the sky with modern styling.
And there, visible in the distance, was something that made his brain hiccup: electrical lines. Street lamps powered by electricity rather than fire or chakra. Paved roads with painted markings.
The future, Naruto thought, hovering on instinct as he processed the sight. This is what Konoha becomes. More modern. More... technological?
It felt wrong somehow. Not bad, necessarily, but discordant. Like seeing someone you knew wearing completely different clothes and styling their hair differently. Still recognizable, but changed in ways that made you question if you really knew them at all.
Naruto descended quickly, not wanting to draw attention. Being spotted floating in the sky would raise questions he didn't want to answer until he understood this world better.
He landed in an alley between two buildings, using Instantaneous Movement to ensure nobody witnessed his arrival. The afternoon sun painted everything in warm tones, and somewhere nearby, he heard the distant bell of a school dismissal.
The Academy, Naruto realized. Classes must be ending for the day.
Perfect. If he wanted to understand this future Konoha, observing the next generation seemed like a logical starting point. Children reflected their society, showed what values were being taught, what goals were being emphasized.
Naruto adjusted his Hokage robe—he was still wearing it from his earlier hospital visit—and headed toward where memory insisted the Academy should be. He moved with Instantaneous Movement, covering blocks in eyeblinks, his passage creating momentary disturbances in the air that pedestrians attributed to wind.
The Academy stood where he remembered it, though the building had been renovated. More windows. Better construction. A training yard that looked actually maintained rather than perpetually half-destroyed by enthusiastic students.
At least they didn't demolish it, Naruto thought with relief. Some things should remain constant. Some landmarks deserved preservation.
He positioned himself near the gate as students began streaming out. Children laughing, shouting, complaining about homework, making plans to meet up later. The eternal rhythm of school dismissal, unchanged across decades.
"Hello, Hokage-sama!"
Naruto blinked as a young student bowed politely while passing. The girl couldn't be more than eight, her Academy uniform crisp and new.
"Hello, Hokage-sama!" Another student, a boy this time, also bowing.
They recognize the robe, Naruto realized. Of course they do. The Hokage outfit is distinctive. They probably see... see the other me... regularly enough to know what it means.
The thought was strange. There was another version of him in this world. An older version. The Naruto who'd lived through the intervening fifteen years and presumably become Hokage through more conventional means than executing his predecessor.
"Hey," one student whispered to another as they passed, loud enough for Naruto to overhear. "Did you see Hokage-sama? He looks different today."
"Yeah! Way younger! And more handsome! Did he get a makeover or something?"
"Maybe it's a transformation jutsu? Testing new techniques?"
Their voices faded as they walked away, leaving Naruto with a creeping sense of unease.
Younger and more handsome, he thought. Meaning the other me looks older and... less handsome? What happened to this world's Naruto? Why would I age poorly? Ultimate Taijutsu should prevent that. The more I train, the more refined my body becomes. So why would future me look worse?
Unless future-Naruto hadn't trained the same way. Hadn't received the System. Hadn't dedicated himself to training with single-minded intensity.
Did he get lazy? Naruto wondered with genuine horror. Did I somehow become the kind of person who lets himself go?
"Goodbye, Mitarai-sensei!"
The voice pulled Naruto's attention to the Academy's main door. A figure emerged—a woman in Academy instructor clothing, moving with the tired trudge of someone who'd spent all day managing children.
And she was enormous.
Not tall-enormous. Fat-enormous. Spherical-enormous. Her body had expanded to the point where her clothing strained at every seam, where movement clearly required effort, where her breathing came labored and heavy.
But the face. Despite the weight, despite the years, Naruto recognized those features.
That's... that can't be...
"Mitarai-sensei" the students had called her.
No. No way. That's impossible.
Naruto used Instantaneous Movement, appearing directly in front of the woman mid-stride.
She stopped abruptly, barely avoiding collision, her momentum carrying her forward another step before she could fully halt. "What are you doing?!" she complained, irritation clear in her voice. Then she looked up, really seeing him for the first time.
Her eyes widened. "Hokage-sama?"
Naruto stared at her face, searching desperately for evidence that he was wrong. That this couldn't possibly be who he thought it was.
But the bone structure was right. The eyes were right. Even the way she held herself—despite the weight—carried echoes of that confident, dangerous woman he'd met during the Chunin Exams.
"What are you trying to do?" the woman continued, her tone shifting to confused concern. "Making yourself up to look so young and handsome. What's the game here, Hokage-sama?"
She thought he was playing pranks. Using transformation jutsu to relive his youth. Because the concept that he could actually look like this naturally was apparently impossible in this timeline.
"Are you..." Naruto forced the words out, knowing the answer but needing confirmation anyway. "Are you Mitarai Anko's younger sister?"
The woman's face went through several expressions in rapid succession. Confusion. Offense. Anger.
"I AM Mitarai Anko!" she said, voice rising. "I don't have a younger sister! And you know that, Hokage-sama! I was the proctor for your Chunin Exam! We've known each other for years!"
No, Naruto's brain insisted. No, that's wrong. Mitarai Anko is slender. Athletic. She moves like a predator. She wears mesh and a tan overcoat and she's dangerous and confident and she does NOT look like a walking potato.
"No," Naruto said, shaking his head. "That's not right. Mitarai Anko doesn't look like this. You must be her sister. Mitarai... Mitarai Satsumaimo?"
Anko = Sweet Red Bean Paste.
Satsumaimo = Sweet Potato.
The silence that followed could have frozen lava.
Anko's face went through an impressive spectrum of colors. Red. Purple. A shade that might charitably be called 'apoplectic crimson.'
"SATSUMAIMO?!" she roared. "You... you just called me... you basically called me FAT, you absolute—"
She cut herself off, breathing heavily, clearly deciding that screaming at the Hokage in public was a poor career move regardless of provocation.
"You know what?" Anko said, her voice dangerously quiet. "I don't have time for this. If you came to see your son Boruto, you're out of luck. He skipped class today. Again. You can go find him yourself. I'm leaving!"
She stormed past Naruto, her substantial form creating the impression of a particularly angry avalanche.
Naruto stood frozen, his brain trying to process multiple pieces of information simultaneously.
My son. She said my son. Son named Boruto. In a world called "Boruto." The world of the protagonist. My child is the protagonist of this timeline's story.
The pieces clicked together with horrible clarity.
This is the children's generation. The next generation after mine. I'm not young in this world. I'm middle-aged. Possibly approaching elderly by ninja standards. And apparently I look it.
But that wasn't even the most disturbing part.
"What happened to this world?" Naruto muttered, watching Anko's retreating form. "How did Mitarai Anko go from dangerous ninja to... to walking sweet potato?"
A terrible thought struck him.
If Anko looks like that... then what about...
"Oh no."
Terumi Mei. Beautiful, seductive, powerful Terumi Mei. The Mizukage who'd spent half an hour experiencing his vibration technique and left "flushed and satisfied." The woman who wore her attractiveness like a weapon and knew exactly how devastating it could be.
If this world had destroyed Anko's figure, what had it done to Mei?
Naruto's form blurred and vanished, Instantaneous Movement carrying him across hundreds of miles in seconds. The Land of Water. Kirigakure. The Mizukage's office.
He materialized on a rooftop overlooking the administrative district and immediately activated his ki/blood sensing, searching for that familiar signature.
Found it.
Naruto descended to street level, positioning himself where he could observe without being seen. There, walking through the market district with an assistant, was a woman he barely recognized.
She'd kept her auburn hair, at least. But the face had softened, filled out. The body that had been curves and danger was now just... soft. Matronly. The confident stride had become a middle-aged woman's practical walk.
She looked like someone's aunt. Someone's kind, slightly boring aunt who baked cookies and gave unsolicited life advice.
This was Terumi Mei. The Fifth Mizukage. The woman who'd once made jonin stutter with a smile and a sultry glance.
This is what she becomes? Naruto thought, something breaking inside his chest. This is the future? This is what awaits beautiful, powerful people? They just... decay? Become ordinary? Lose everything that made them special?
The System had said this was a possible future. One timeline among many. But seeing it made real, seeing the concrete evidence of time's cruelty, seeing what happened when people stopped training, stopped cultivating, stopped pushing themselves toward immortality...
It was horrifying.
"No," Naruto whispered. "No, absolutely not. This can't be the future. "
The pressure built inside him like steam in a sealed kettle. Horror and rage and rejection mixing together into something volatile. His ki and blood surged, responding to his emotional state, and the air around him began to shimmer with heat.
The System brought me here to show me this? To show me what happens if I fail? If I don't achieve immortality? If I let myself and everyone I care about just... age and decay and lose everything?
This is the "happy mood" it wished me? This is the "pleasant surprise"?
The pressure reached critical mass.
"FUCK!"
The word tore from Naruto's throat with enough force to crack stone. His aura exploded outward in a visible wave of golden energy, condensed ki and blood creating a pressure field that bent reality like heated glass.