Sword of God -- A Naruto Fanfiction

| 46 | Naruto's Return

Less than a year later:

The man in the grey trenchcoat strode into Konoha, dismissing the sleeping gate guards without a second thought.

He had been wrapped in a blanket of darkness and shadow, with only the caring moon illuminating him overhead.

The dead of night.

Naruto's favourite time, he wouldn't miss the cool, gentle winds nor the beautiful, twinkling stars that flew by in slow-motion.

The dim, yet marvellous beams of the moon would always caress his roughened cheeks to the point where it became an addiction.

But all of that had been stripped away from him as the unforgiving nights of homelessness became a thing of the past.

That's not to say that he was ungrateful for what his grandfather had done; to the contrary, it was the opposite.

It's just that... He had never been awarded the chance to thank the heavens of the solace they provided him, even in his darkest hours where tears were shed and his haggled form was left unkempt.

And he had attuned himself to it in more ways than one, from the bending of it's light from when he had acquired Blacklight, to the time where he had been able to manipulate it's great wavelengths, his level of mastery over the lunar deity's manifestation in space was unprecedented.

So, when he arrived unwelcomed without a trace of his 'friends', he sighed.

Not like I had been expecting anything.

With that gloomy thought, he trekked into his apartment, not even bothering to disable the seals he had implemented.

Instead, his mere presence seemed to be corrosive, like an anoxic bubble around him had completely shut off and consumed the ambient seals like the flick of a switch.

With a heavy sigh, he entered the apartment, noticing the rust on the metal door as well as the growing fungus around the graffitied walls, slinging a massive backpack off his back, a storage unit for the items he had accumulated over his travels.

From the folds of his cloak, he placed a crucifix onto the inside of the doorknob, made out of a lustrous silver with tiny diamonds embedded in it.

It seemed to glisten with metaphysical light, even though there was none in the dark of the night.

Naruto stepped into his apartment, grateful for the cool winds billowing in from the open window opposite.

He unloaded his travelling cloak on a hook, unpacking the contents of his bag neatly onto a massive chamber, the same one where he had first met Jiraiya, in fact, where items of impossible proportion were tidily laid out for the display of none.

Sooner or later, the Uzumaki fortune isn't going to sustain my future generations. I need some steady income...

Naruto brushed off an insignificant speck of dust, heading to his bedroom.

He froze, reaching for a kunai before recalling that he had discarded it from his person.

Whilst keeping his left hand in a singular hand-sign, he yanked the door open, igniting a flame the size of a candle on the tips of his fingers, pointing it to the most imminent points of ambush.

Not even the first day back and already I'm getting attacked? This always happens to me...

"Five Flame For--" He muttered, just before the lights flickered on.

"Welcome back, Naruto!"

Naruto paused, the flames in his hand diminishing to nothing but gas as a banner fluttered into view, sprawled across the ceiling, tasked with delivering the same message as that that was spoken.