Nindō: Dominion

In a somewhat barren training ground outside Konoha, approximately a hundred thousand identical clones were seated cross-legged while meditating. Occasionally, some clones popped into smoke, only for one of the surrounding ones to create new ones, making sure that the training ground was mostly populated. The clones were all seated in a circular formation surrounding a stone slab in the center that had a seal engraved into it.

As the clones continued meditating and getting dispelled, once every few minutes, one of them would disappear from their original spot and appear in front of the seal before exclaiming in success and disappearing into the smoke.

This was the training that they had been doing for the past three days. Every day, from sunrise to midnight, they continued training in the ability to sense the Flying Raijin's marker. The first step was the condensation of the seal in mid-air, relying solely on chakra. That barely took half a day with the sheer number of clones focusing on it. After that, all of their time was spent training to improve their sensitivity toward sensing the frequency of the central marker through the Seal Dimension.

Suddenly, the real Naruto appeared in front of the seal, colliding with an excited clone who ended up getting dispelled without being able to express his excitement.

"Hmm… around five minutes… not too bad." The moment he nodded in satisfaction, all hundred thousand of the clones burst into smoke as if in silent protest. Naruto's brow twitched, not affected in the slightest by the memory infusion of so many clones. "Unfortunately, that five-minute mark is only for this specific seal. That makes things much more inconvenient.

[What do you mean?] Kurama woke up from a pleasant nap. [Haven't you established a rudimentary connection with the Seal Dimension now?]

[Yes … But it's not that simple. My current connection level will require around five minutes to sense this specific mark. Let's say I make a new mark and try to sense it. That would require me anywhere from an hour to two hours. And the worst part is that I can't even move this mark because the spatial coordinates will change, changing the frequency.]

[At this point, I feel like you are just fucking with me and artificially weakening this ability.]

[It is what it is, Kurama. Why else would I never learn the Flying Raijin otherwise? It doesn't make any sense not to learn such a convenient ability after living for over thirty years. It's because of my abysmal talent in terms of sealing that I could never learn this technique.]

[So for now, all you can do is teleport your clones back to Konoha …]

[Unfortunately, yes.]

[I have a thought … Why don't you try to use the Dominion Mark as an anchor for the ability? As long as you sufficiently modify the technique, you should be able to lock in on the frequency of that mark much quicker than anything else, no? It might be limited, but it would still be faster than being limited to these inefficient markers that can't even be moved.]

[You know what? Your words make sense. But that will require a lot of testing alongside trial and error. I guess I need to have my clones continue working.]

[Speaking of clones, I've been observing. Your clones are slowly getting dissatisfied. Make sure that they don't end up rebelling against you.]

[Nah. It's just that my current mental level influences them slightly, which makes them possess greater temporal cognizance between getting dispelled and me spawning them. Essentially, they have more of a personality due to how high my spirit's impact is. Despite my suppressing them by a large margin, they are affected. It doesn't have any negative connotations beyond them showing me some attitude.]

[As long as you know what's going on. Of course, this could be a flag that you are deliberately setting up for a self-induced crisis of your clones going rogue.]

[Nah, that's a dumb thing. I can remotely dispel them whenever I want. The only way that would happen is if I used a different clone technique that incorporated divinity. You can stay calm for now.]

[So how do you plan to train in sensing the Flying Raijin frequency of the Dominion Mark?]

[Simple. I'm going to brute force it.]

With a single hand seal, a hundred thousand of Naruto's clones appeared in the clearing once again.

"New jutsu, guys." His words were met with a collective groan. "Stop groaning and start modifying the Flying Raijin to sense and use the Dominion Mark as the teleportation marker. At least that way, I can move to any of the holders without any issues. Specifically, focus on sensing Karin's mark for now. Sarada is too young to participate in an experiment such as this, and I'm going to be spending time with Hinata. Try to teleport to Karin after modifying the jutsu."

As he continued instructing his clones on how they were to train and what they were supposed to do, Kurama spoke in his head once again.

[By the way, Naruto. What is going on with that whole alternate version of Ino Yamanaka? Is what she said true?]

[What's going on is that we have another existential crisis on our heads beyond the whole situation with the Ōtsutsuki.] Naruto said. [In essence, our reality is on course to collide with another, the one that the alternate Ino came from. This is an incursion. The end result of this collision will be the merging of both realities into an amalgamation that breaks all laws of physics. With time, the amalgamation will naturally destabilize, vaporizing both realities. Unless, of course, one of those realities is destroyed by the other. Hence, Ino's subtle moves to sow chaos in our world.]

[Is that the reason that you … came back? To protect this reality?]

[Please, Kurama. My reason was much more petty. I just wanted to fix things with my family and stop feeling like I failed to protect those I cared about. This incursion thing is just a slight inconvenience that I will casually take care of when the time comes.]

[I wish I could truly have your nonchalance, Naruto. Then again, it's not like I'm going to do anything beyond giving you my chakra. Enjoy dealing with one existential crisis after another.]

[Man, my only existential crisis is the fact that I'm about to tell Hinata that I cheated on her with Karin, of all people.]

As Kurama laughed at his misery, Naruto wrapped things up, leaving the clones to continue their training to come up with a method to use the Dominion Mark as a teleportation marker. Naruto's next destination was his home. It was time to prepare for a long-overdue vacation.

…

It was already past sunset by the time Naruto returned home.

"How was your day, Naruto-kun?" Hinata greeted him at the door just as he entered and was taking off his shoes.

"Amazing, now that I'm home," he responded with a kiss. "How are the kids?"

"They're upstairs," she said as they walked into the living room. "Both of them are very excited to finally go on a vacation."

"It's understandable. Hima was barely six when we last went," Naruto said. "Have you finished packing?"

"I've taken care of our packing. I made a point not to put in even a single piece of orange clothing," she said with a cheeky smile that made Naruto laugh.

"I don't mind changing things when on vacation. It's convenient to wear the same thing every day when you have such a prominent public persona, but it does get exhausting every once in a while."

"A vacation is the perfect excuse to change things up," she said. "By the way, we are going by train, right? I will have to change our luggage if not."

"Of course," Naruto nodded. "I have no plans for all of us to run across the country to reach the Land of Hot Water. While traveling on foot would be faster, that wouldn't comprise a vacation, would it?"

"Remember when Hima was just born, and we went all the way to Mount Koryū on foot? We crossed the entire Land of Wind that time with our newborn kids…" She had a fond expression of reminiscing on her face.

"How could I forget?" Naruto smiled at Hinata's excitement. "That was Gaara's first time meeting both of them. I still remember how Boruto almost dropped the pot that Gaara had sealed Shukaku in. Everyone was panicking while Boruto laughed and poked Shukaku's nose."

"That's the reason I always worry about him whenever he goes out on a mission. He has such a low sense of self-preservation that it always gets him into dangerous situations," she said with dissatisfaction. "He always gets into trouble."

"He's a kid. I was much worse back then," Naruto chuckled. "As long as I'm here, no one can do anything to our kids. I promise."

[Naruto, I don't know why, but can you stop speaking in jinxes?] Kurama's voice was filled with genuine concern. [First the clone thing, now this. It's like you are challenging the world to make something weird happen.]

[You're overthinking it, Kurama.]

[The moment something happens, expect me to say that I told you so.]

[Me saying it or not has no meaning to the situation. If something is going to happen, then it will happen.]

***

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