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Naruto stretched as he stood up from his bed, feeling the enhanced energy coursing through his newly optimized genetics. The fusion had been completed just minutes ago, and he was eager to test what new abilities might have awakened within him. His knowledge from his previous life told him that the Uzumaki clan possessed several unique techniques, and with his bloodline now purified and enhanced...
"Let me try something," he murmured to himself, closing his eyes and focusing inward.
He recalled reading about the Kagura Mind's Eye—a sensory technique that allowed Uzumaki clan members to detect chakra signatures across vast distances. In the original timeline, Karin had been particularly skilled with this ability. Now, with his enhanced Uzumaki genetics, maybe he could access it too.
Naruto took a deep breath and extended his senses outward, feeling for the familiar energy signatures of chakra. At first, there was nothing but the ambient energy of the village. Then, slowly, like tuning into a radio frequency, he began to pick up distinct signatures.
His eyes snapped open in alarm.
"Three... no, wait—eight different signatures," he whispered, his enhanced senses mapping out the locations with startling clarity. "Three positioned on the nearby rooftops, and five more spread around the building's perimeter. All of them focused on... me."
The chakra signatures were distinct and well-concealed, but his newly awakened Kagura Mind's Eye cut through their stealth techniques like a hot knife through butter. Three of them felt familiar—ANBU operatives, likely assigned by the Third Hokage to keep an eye on the Nine-Tails jinchuriki. But the other five...
Those signatures were different. Colder. More controlled. And they carried a subtle darkness that made his enhanced instincts recoil.
"Root," he breathed, recognizing the distinctive chakra patterns from his past life's knowledge. Danzo's personal forces.
This was problematic. If both ANBU and Root were watching him, and if any of them had witnessed his transformation or the Omnitrix's abilities, it could lead to complications he wasn't ready to handle. He needed to act, and quickly.
Naruto glanced down at the Omnitrix, its green faceplate glowing softly. He scrolled through the available alien forms, searching for something that could handle this delicate situation without causing a larger incident.
His finger stopped on a particular silhouette—a graceful, fairy-like figure with butterfly wings. The name came to him from his Ben 10 knowledge: Pesky Dust, the dream manipulator alien.
"Perfect," he smiled grimly, pressing down on the Omnitrix's core.
Green light flooded the small apartment as his body shifted and changed. When the transformation completed, Naruto had become a small, purple-and-pink fairy-like alien with delicate butterfly wings and large, hypnotic eyes. Pesky Dust's powers were perfectly suited for this situation—dream manipulation and memory alteration without permanent harm.
He flew to his window, opening it quietly. The morning air felt different against his alien form's sensitive wings as he took flight, moving with supernatural grace and silence.
The first ANBU operative never saw him coming. Pesky Dust's hypnotic abilities activated automatically as he approached, and the masked ninja's eyes grew heavy before he slumped forward, caught in an induced sleep. Naruto-as-Pesky Dust quickly wove the dream, showing the ANBU agent a mundane morning where nothing unusual happened—just a newly graduated genin eating breakfast and preparing for the day.
He moved swiftly to the next target, then the next, each ANBU operative falling into peaceful slumber as their memories of the morning were carefully edited. Any recollection of strange green lights, alien transformations, or advanced technology was replaced with perfectly ordinary observations.
The Root operatives proved slightly more challenging—their training made them more resistant to mental intrusion—but Pesky Dust's abilities were designed for exactly this kind of work. One by one, they too succumbed to the dream manipulation, their memories carefully scrubbed of any evidence of the Omnitrix or Naruto's genetic enhancement.
Within minutes, all eight surveillance operatives were experiencing carefully crafted dreams that would leave them with false but convincing memories of an utterly normal morning. They would wake up in a few hours with no recollection of anything unusual, their reports to their respective commanders reflecting nothing more than routine monitoring of a newly graduated genin.
Naruto-as-Pesky Dust returned to his apartment window, transforming back into his human form with a flash of green light. He landed softly on his bedroom floor, looking around at the peaceful morning scene as if nothing had happened.
"That was close," he muttered, running a hand through his flame-highlighted hair. The Kagura Mind's Eye had proven invaluable—without it, he never would have detected the surveillance in time to act.
He made a mental note to be more careful in the future. Both the Third Hokage and Danzo were far too observant to fool indefinitely, and he couldn't rely on dream manipulation every time he wanted to use the Omnitrix's abilities.
For now, though, his secret was safe. The watchers would wake up with boring reports and no memory of the incredible technology wrapped around his wrist.
Naruto glanced at the Omnitrix and smiled. Having access to the right alien for every situation was definitely going to make his new life much more interesting—and much more manageable.
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