#8
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A SAGE ADRIFT
#8
In the Davis couple's dining room, 3:00 AM
As soon as Dorothy entered the dining room through the backdoor and turned the lights on, they found themselves at the other end of a shotgun wielded by a very irate-looking Richard. The intimidation tactic was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was still in his pajamas.
"Oh, put that thing away before you hurt yourself," Dorothy said to Richard without batting an eye even as Naruto kept his hands up in the air, knowing the appropriate reaction to a gun being pointed at your face.
"Where were you? I was worried sick." Richard said to Dorothy even as he signalled Naruto to step away from the door with his sawed-off double-barrel shotgun.
Dorothy put the water to boil on the stove before coming back to the dining area only to find Richard and Naruto in the same position as before. She then rolled her eyes and without even batting an eye, took the gun off of Richard and said, "Remember what happened the last time you tried to perform this stunt? Huh?"
Richard, now devoid of his main weapon, awkwardly lowered his arms and just stared at Dorothy. Comically, Naruto did the same.
"You dislocated your shoulder. Now, sit down, I'll make yours decaf."
"Naruto dear, take a seat as well. We have a lot to talk about here."
Richard's neck snapped towards Naruto as if he just remembered something.
"Yeah, so it's true then? He is one of those mutants?" Richard said even as he fidgeted with his glasses, clearly a nervous tick for him.
"No, he says that he isn't one of them but he does have powers like them. Don't worry about him because he will not be hurting anyone, I can tell you that much." Dorothy said as she brought three cups of coffee for all of them.
"Oh, I knew that. I was just asking if his presence will bring in any unwanted attention to our farm. The bad kind of attention, Dorothy." Richard said even as he held his cup in his hands, its satisfying warmth was a good counter to the cold dining room.
"Hey, Kid," Naruto looked up from the cup of coffee he was served.
"Hmm?"
"How long did you plan on keeping this to yourself? Is this the reason you don't have any identity? Are you on the run from someone?" The rapid barrage of questions just went over Naruto's head as he looked to Dorothy for guidance.
Dorothy sighed and said, "Look, he means well. We have had some…encounters with the mutant kind and in my line of work, it had always meant shielding them from someone or something. Sadly, more often than not, I had to shield them from the laws. Many times, I found myself helpless in the face of the law but don't you worry, times have changed now."
Dorothy's face brightened up as she continued, "I have heard that there are dedicated schools for the mutant kind now and while there has been no official law regarding them, their existence is an open secret now, so no government wants to push them in fear of someone powerful enough retaliating against the government."
"So, kid, what can you do?" Richard asked him, trying to stare him down. Dorothy rolled her eyes in the background.
Trying to fight the smile that was threatening to plaster itself on his face, his lips twitched while he said, "Uh, mainly strength enhancement and all the necessary enhancements to support that."
As if a switch had been flipped, Richard's eyes glinted as he said, "So, stronger muscles and increased bone density? Along with increased stamina and endurance? You must heal faster as well due to the obviously increased metabolism. "
Caught off guard with the detailed analysis, Naruto could only nod his head.
"And what about the thing you just showed me, dear?" Dorothy added in, clearly amused by the byplay between them.
"Uh, that…"
"Yeah, the dogs have been terrified of the orange flashes of light that you have been throwing around in the forest. Stop doing that. Also, what was it?"
"Yeah, the thing is, I..don't exactly know."
"What does that mean?"
"Well, the thing is I can manipulate hard light to form constructs that can have varying amounts of strength but the thing I did today, with the grass and the trees, it was the first time I was noticing it too. I don't really know how I did that. I would have to research more to check."
"So, you do research? Do you have any notes I can see if you want to show us, that is?" Richard leaned forward, clearly interested in any notes he could see about Naruto's powers.
Naruto could only smile awkwardly at the question. He would whine and cry about writing a mission report and after coming to this reality, even if it did make him feel a bit guilty, he was very much glad to have left behind the paperwork that came with becoming Hokage.
Honestly, if he knew what being the Hokage entailed, he…probably would have still gone through with it because being Hokage was awesome but he would have been more prepared mentally.
"Back off, Richard." Dorothy gently admonished Richard.
"Don't worry, Naruto. You don't have to worry about us with your powers. Just make sure that nobody can find out about you since we are not sure about the people on the farm and I haven't even begun with the government. Honestly, if you want, I can set up a meeting with the people from the school that take in Mutants but if you say you are not one, I don't know if they will help you not."
"Thank you, Ms.Davis. I just have a little more work to do and then I'll be out of your hair, believe it." Naruto winced internally at his verbal tick returning.
"What work?" Richard asked him.
He ruminated internally whether or not to tell them about the Ancient One's predictions but doing so would require another long-winded explanation so he opted not to.
"Working on myself and my powers, mostly. Once I feel I am confident enough in protecting myself, I'll move out of the farm myself."
"Oh, nonsense. If we can't even protect you then my entire career has been a failure. Don't you worry, if anybody from the government comes, just tell me and I'll make sure that they don't just take and put you away to rot." Dorothy said while bringing out some of his favourite cookies.
'Thanks, Mrs. Davis," Naruto said even as his mind went back to the information he had in his brain about the Time Stone.
Apparently, it was an ingot of creation, capable of granting its wielder, dominion over Time itself. That made him think about other ingots of creation that could potentially exist as well. Maybe, a Space Stone?
Something that could grant him dominion over Space. He could maybe use that to create a path back home. Or maybe it grants control over Space only in a specific place, depending on the power of the user.
It was also written in one of the books he had in his mind library that should the user try to use the Time Stone without enough mastery or control over themselves, their powers, their souls, and over the Stone itself, they could risk being consumed by the stone.
Such thoughts plagued his mind all the way until he fell asleep on his futon back in his flat.
…
..
The next morning, his body woke up at the same time and he got to doing his motions mechanically, still mentally tired from the ordeal from last night. But it was time to work and physical labour was the least he could do for the Davis couple since they had been such accommodating people for him.
He had feared that, with the hate that mutants experience, they might kick him out or at least distance themselves from him but he experienced no such thing. Apparently, Dorothy had encountered multiple such cases during her stint as a social worker.
Kids running away from home, their foster house, and even their countries, hoping to get away from the people who would hunt them down for having powers they didn't ask for. Unfortunately, according to her, most of the runaway kids had obvious markers that marked them as mutants and even after her best tries, usually disappeared after a week or two of being with her.
Whether that was due to them being too afraid of staying in one place or somebody systematically hunting them down, Dorothy had no idea.
But he did. In his mind, he had records of multiple such organisations that have dedicated themselves to hunting down mutants and if found useful enough, molding them into their weapons for their so-called "Cause".
He found these people sickening and if it had been back home, with him as the Hokage, he would not have batted an eye after ordering the ANBU to uproot and destroy the organisation completely.
After making sure that the Davis couple was fine and his chakra pathways were healed properly, he planned on asking the Ancient One for the Sands of Power Cosmic so that he could at least have his repertoire of Ninjutsu back. That would help him immensely in his quest to get back home.
But first things first, since he was here anyway, might as well clean out the trash that plagued the planet. Besides, if he was lucky, he might even stumble upon some mutant who could send him home or at least help him find a way. That too would be more than enough. The so-called "Friends of Humanity" would be first on his list for extermination…. maybe not extermination but he would make sure that they would not be able to hunt mutants for their entire lives and in some ways, he believed that being disabled was a worse fate than being killed outright.
Getting ready and wearing his farm clothes, as Dorothy liked to call them, he was about to head out when he paused. His eyes narrowed as he looked at a specific corner of the room and said with a commanding tone, "Get out!"
"Impressive," A sound came from seemingly nowhere and everywhere but all his instincts were telling him that someone was in that corner.
His gut feeling was right because soon, the corner he was looking at glitched, and then, a man sitting in a wheelchair accompanied by another shorter man appeared in front of him.
Genjutsu then.
He mentally willed dimensional energy to start pooling into his body and prepared himself for a fight with his senses crippled because, without his chakra, he had little ways of preventing himself from being caught in a Genjutsu or illusion as the people here liked to call it.
The people in front of him were the ones from the Mutant School run by Charles Xavier. He could recognise Wolverine and Xavier from anywhere because his memories had vivid information about them, their cause, their history, their school, and..their rivals.
"You don't need to be wary around us, Young Naruto." The voice of Xavier came directly into his mind, annoying him further.
"I am not worried about you and get out of my mind before I do it for you. What I am worried about are your friends. Magneto."
"Perceptive, aren't you?" The entire room he was standing in began shaking before the roof itself was torn apart as Magneto revealed himself, floating right above his roof. He clenched his fist and looked around for anyone who might have been caught in that, aghast at the callous attitude of Magneto.
"Don't worry, everyone here has been evacuated earlier."
His gaze snapped towards Xavier who assured him that nobody other than him was on the farm. After using his own senses to confirm that, only then did he let go of his coiled combat pose and stood up, relaxed physically but still not letting go of the dimensional energy that circulated in his body.
"Where did everybody go?" He asked Xavier without taking his eyes off the main threat in the room, Magneto. Meanwhile, Magneto slowly flew down to stand in his now roofless room.
Man, he was gonna have to pay a lot of money for that to get repaired. He was not sure if working free for a year would cover it or not. He would figure that out later on.
"Don't worry, Naruto, I have sent them away from here and one of my associates is with them. Once we leave, they will be returned to the farm without any recollection of anything odd happening. You have my word." Charles Xavier replied.
He sighed. No point fighting now.
"What do you people want?"
"What we want is mutant safety but I can tell that you are not a mutant yet are immensely powerful. What are your goals here? Because as far as I can tell, there is no mention of you in any database whatsoever." Xavier said even as Magneto nodded, curious about the same.
Welp, there goes his privacy because there was no way these people would back off even if he told them to. Plus, he didn't want to endanger the Davis couple more than he already has.
So, he began, "Well, my name is Uzumaki Naruto and I am not a mutant…"
Word Count - 2271
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