A week later – Second World, Tobirama Senju's laboratory
"Uhn — "
Link stretched lazily. What a glorious nap; feels as if I've slept a whole century.
— Wait, don't tell me it really has been a century!
He snapped his eyes open. He did not see a decayed ruin or some high-tech chamber, only two very familiar, worried faces—so he laughed.
As soon as he opened his eyes the shadows under him flowed back into place and the pitch-black laboratory lit up in an instant. The sudden blaze made Sasuke and Utakata squint.
"Kept you waiting, huh?"
Before sleeping Link had ordered his shadows to keep tally; one glance at the dense rows of tally-marks on the floor told him roughly how long he'd been out. Noticing how drained his two friends looked, he spoke—and was startled by his own voice.
It was even younger than before, a little sharp. The sound bounced through the lab; Link could clearly distinguish every reflected layer. His ears caught the echoes striking everything in the room and feeding back into his brain, which instinctively built a three-dimensional model—as though he'd activated omnidirectional sonar.
With that single sentence the whole building had been mapped, and the expanding waves kept probing farther out. An avalanche of data poured in: smells, sounds, images, chakra fluctuations, ambient nature energy …
My head's going to explode.
Yet nothing happened: his brain absorbed it all effortlessly and produced a neat summary.
Shame I didn't grow any taller, he thought, a little disappointed.
"What is it?" Sasuke asked, tense because his friend had blanked out.
"Nothing." Link smiled. "Come on, I'm starving. Let's get something to eat."
Oddly, his mind now felt split. One half coldly, logically collected information; the other chatted idly with his two friends.
Leaving the laboratory building he wasn't surprised to find a crowd of Alliance bigwigs waiting outside. Actually, on the short trip downstairs his perception had already covered the whole Alliance hub—half of Land of Fire, really.
Every person, animal, and plant was within his search grid. Multispectral, multidimensional senses: hearing, smell, temperature, chakra, nature energy—after brain processing, useless noise was filtered and the rest stored for his awareness. Explaining it took a sentence or two; the process was beyond complex. It felt more like an instinct than a learned technique.
Under the sunlight he inhaled; instantly his skin darkened. Tsunade, standing not far away, arched a brow—nature energy had swarmed toward the little brat and been swallowed whole.
Sleep once, master Sage Mode? Indeed, not only nature energy: sunlight, kinetic energy in the wind, oxygen—all were absorbed through his skin, converted to power for brain and heart.
A torrent of energy and oxygen rushed in. The roar of blood flow was briefly audible; then, as equilibrium returned, all fell silent.
Currently in power-saving mode, the body told him.
Apparently the planet's oxygen and energy weren't enough to run his fully transformed body, so it kept his outward appearance unchanged to save power. If he wanted he could "transform" once—only once—with the stored energy.
Transform? The idea made him grimace; matched to his size he'd look suspiciously like a certain galactic tyrant. Too bad he only had energy for one shot: continuing to grow would require other "forms." Now that he was aware of the throttling, he felt cramped, itching to power up and show off.
Soon, he promised himself, bidding farewell to the assembled leaders and heading with Sasuke and Utakata to a yakiniku shop to gorge.
Photosynthesis might keep a throttled body alive, but without food he felt awful.
While eating he skimmed Rownet. In short: in the Second World the five great villages had just been purged. Fourth Hokage and Third Tsuchikage removed, hefty fines on the rest.
Dirty-work elites jailed or executed; dozens of minor groups erased. The Alliance's lightning-swift crackdown left only silence—and fear. Under Shisui's Kotoamatsukami nobody lied; once captured a ninja quickly learned how much the fine or sentence would be.
Research into Hashirama cells and Primarch cells had advanced: cloned bodies could now serve as Edo-Tensei vessels, each grown with Kage-class chakra reserves. Edo-Tensei itself had been upgraded. Someday, with Primarch-powered vessels, it might even be possible to resurrect the dead without Link.
Meanwhile a dozen people—mostly from the Final-Chapter World—had finally amassed enough contribution points for resurrection; all waiting for Link to wake and perform the jutsu.
He munched, listened, browsed—and stored it all.