The plateau was littered with kunai, each etched with crude Flying Raijin formulas.
Naruto crouched over one, wiping sweat from his brow. His fingers traced the spiral marks like he was trying to memorize them by touch.
"All about anchors, right?" he muttered. "Seal the mark, pour in chakra, then—bam—space folds, and I jump. Easy."
"Easy, he says," Jiraiya groaned from a boulder nearby, rubbing his temples. "Minato spent years on the theory alone, brat. And you—what, a week? You can't brute-force space-time jutsu with a thousand clones and stubbornness. That's like hammering a puzzle into place."
Naruto grinned, cheeky. "Sometimes hammers work better than tweezers."
Jiraiya groaned louder.
A clone popped into existence beside Naruto. It picked up one of the kunai, spinning it between its fingers. "Alright, boss. Let's give it a whirl."
The real Naruto nodded. "Balance the chakra, focus on the mark, imagine the landing point. That's all. Don't overthink it."
The clone grinned. "That's rich, coming from you."
It slammed chakra into the kunai. The formula flared—spirals of light spinning out like a whirlpool.
The world twisted.
Air rippled. The ground shuddered. For a second, it looked like the clone had been sucked sideways, body elongating unnaturally. Jiraiya leapt to his feet. "Oi—!"
Then, silence.
The clone was gone.
Naruto blinked. "Uh… that's not how Dad did it."
Jiraiya was already sprinting toward the smoking seal on the ground. His eyes narrowed, hands running through quick diagnostic signs. "This… this isn't Flying Raijin. The formula bent wrong. He didn't jump across space—he carved into it."
Naruto tilted his head. "…Carved into it?"
Before Jiraiya could answer, a shimmer sparked in the air above the seal. A crack, like a mirror fracturing, opened sideways. The clone's voice echoed faintly from within.
"…Hey, boss? Uh. You might want to see this."
Naruto's eyes widened. "He's still there!"
Without hesitation, he formed another clone and shoved it through the shimmering crack. The barrier rippled—and then stabilized, like an open doorway.
Naruto and Jiraiya both froze.
Through the opening stretched a space that shouldn't exist. A small room, about the size of an apartment, suspended in nothing. Walls of raw chakra shimmered like glass, humming faintly. The first clone stood inside, waving nervously.
"Yo! Uh… so… I think I made a… room?"
Naruto's jaw dropped. "No way… A pocket space?"
Jiraiya stared, mouth open, pipe dangling forgotten in his hand. His voice came out in a whisper. "…Minato never even theorized this. Not once. Brat, do you understand what you've done? Your clone should've dispersed the moment it lost anchor. But it didn't. It stayed."
Naruto's grin spread slowly across his face. "So… it worked?"
"Worked!?" Jiraiya barked, spinning on him. "You didn't teleport! You opened a pocket universe! A chakra-space the size of a damn apartment! Do you know how unstable that is!? One wrong push and it collapses—taking the clone, maybe you, maybe half this plateau with it!"
Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "…But it didn't collapse."
The clone inside cupped its hands around its mouth. "Yeah, it's kinda cozy in here. Bit drafty, though."
Jiraiya's eye twitched so hard it looked painful. "Cozy!? You're standing inside a mistake in reality itself, and you're calling it cozy!?"
Naruto leaned forward, peering at the shimmering entryway. "So… if I can stabilize it…"
"No!" Jiraiya thundered. "Absolutely not! You're not supposed to invent a new branch of space-time ninjutsu by accident! This is beyond forbidden. This is—this is—"
He broke off, pulling a scroll from his sleeve, scribbling furiously. His hands shook as he copied the formula the clone had mangled. His lips moved, muttering, half awe, half horror.
"Impossible. Wrong symmetry. Spirals inverted. It should have shredded him, torn him apart, collapsed instantly. But instead—stable pocket. Stable."
Naruto beamed, bouncing on his heels. "So it's good, then?"
"Good?" Jiraiya roared. "It's terrifying!"
But his eyes didn't leave the formula. Not for a second.
Naruto reached toward the shimmering doorway, palm brushing its edge. The chakra wall rippled, warm against his skin. His grin widened.
"…Looks like the Flying Raijin's got more potential than even Dad realized."
From deep within, Kurama's laughter rumbled like distant thunder. "Heh. Foolish jailor. You don't walk the path of mortals anymore. You're clawing at the edges of gods."
Naruto didn't answer.
He was already imagining what else he could build inside that empty room.
The shimmer pulsed faintly in the air, a doorway of fractured chakra-light.
Naruto's clone stood inside, waving like it had just moved into a new apartment.
"Yo, boss! It's still stable!"
The real Naruto stepped closer, eyes gleaming. "Unbelievable… a whole room, just floating in nothing. Hey—try walking around!"
The clone jogged a lap inside the glowing chamber. His footsteps echoed oddly, as if bouncing between dimensions. "Feels solid! Kinda springy, like walking on a waterbed."
Jiraiya barked from behind them, voice frayed with disbelief. "Naruto, stop this madness immediately! You've ripped open a pocket in reality itself! That thing shouldn't exist, and every second it stays open is a disaster waiting to happen!"
Naruto ignored him. He pressed his palm against the threshold again. Warm. Yielding. Like the surface of a bubble.
"What if I…" He closed his eyes, pouring chakra into the mark. His fingers traced the spiral seal carved into the kunai. "Alright… compress, fold, anchor… now shut."
The doorway rippled—then snapped shut with a sound like cracking glass. The shimmering entry winked out.
The plateau was suddenly silent.
Jiraiya leapt forward, panic flashing across his face. "You idiot! You sealed it shut while your clone was still inside!"
Naruto's eyes snapped open. His breath caught. "…Wait—!"
But then—
From somewhere deep in his mind, the memory feedback of the clone trickled through. Not dispersed. Not gone. Just… waiting.
Naruto blinked, then smiled slowly. "He's still in there."
"What!?" Jiraiya grabbed his shoulders, shaking hard enough to rattle his teeth. "That's impossible! If the door's gone, there should be nothing to sustain the chakra matrix! He should've popped instantly!"
Naruto just laughed, prying Jiraiya's hands off. "Guess not! He's alive, I can feel him. It's like… like the space still exists, even without the entrance. A pocket world. Permanent."
Jiraiya staggered back, pale. His hands trembled as he muttered, "Permanent… a stable dimension… tied to a clone… no anchor… This is beyond teleportation. This is…"
Naruto placed his hand back on the kunai. He focused, tugging on the chakra thread he'd left behind.
The air shimmered. The doorway reappeared in the exact same spot, humming faintly.
"Yo!" The clone's voice echoed from inside. He popped his head out, hair mussed like he'd just woken from a nap. "Still here! Time passes weird in there though. Feels like an hour went by. Kinda boring. You should put a TV in here."
Naruto's grin split ear to ear. "It works! Close it, open it, and it stays!"
Jiraiya sank down onto a rock, staring at the shimmering entry like it was a snake about to bite. "Stable storage space. Independent time flow. Naruto, do you have any idea what you've stumbled into? This isn't a jutsu anymore. This is… territory of the Sage himself."
From within the seal, Kurama's rumbling laughter shook Naruto's mind. "Hah! So the brat has done it. A beast's den, hidden between worlds. Reckless, stupid, dangerous… but effective."
Naruto scratched the back of his head. "So… I basically just made a secret hideout, right? Like, a place nobody can reach unless I open the door."
Jiraiya gaped at him. "A secret—Naruto, this is a dimensional pocket! People have killed for less than scraps of space-time theory! If anyone finds out you can do this, entire nations will hunt you!"
Naruto shrugged. "Then I just won't tell them."
The clone leaned out again, smirking. "Hey, boss. Bet you could store ramen in here and it'd stay hot forever."
Naruto's eyes lit up. "You're right!"
Jiraiya buried his face in his hands. "Kami help me. He's going to use a god-tier space-time accident… as a lunchbox."
The crack shimmered open again, bending the air into a doorway.
Naruto's clone poked its head out, beaming. "Yo, boss! It's still stable!"
Naruto wiped his hands on his pants and marched through. This time, the air folded around him with less resistance, like stepping through a bead curtain.
The pocket universe hummed quietly. Empty walls of chakra stretched outward, translucent and shimmering like glass. It was bare, echoing, the size of a single-room apartment.
"Too small," Naruto muttered, scratching his chin. "Guess I'll just… make it bigger."
Kurama's laughter rolled through his skull. "Enlarge a space that shouldn't exist? Idiot boy, you'll unravel yourself before you unravel this cage."
Naruto grinned. "Then I'll unravel carefully."
⸻
Day One — Expansion
A thousand clones lined the walls. Together, they pressed chakra outward, pushing against the boundaries. The shimmering glass rippled, resisted, then stretched.
The space groaned. Cracks spiderwebbed across the walls. Half the clones popped instantly, flooding Naruto with dizziness.
But the walls didn't collapse. They bent. Expanded.
The pocket grew—twice its size, then three times. Naruto collapsed on the floor, panting, but grinning.
"See? Bigger already."
Jiraiya, watching from the outside, had both hands buried in his hair. "You're going to give me a heart attack, brat! This isn't training, this is—this is dimensional vandalism!"
⸻
Day Three — Landscaping
The space was now the size of a training hall. The walls gleamed a faint blue, humming faintly like chakra glass.
Naruto summoned more clones. "Alright, boys, let's make it homey."
The clones set to work with alarming enthusiasm. Some carved the ground into soil, others reshaped chakra into grassy textures. A few experimented with light orbs floating along the ceiling, giving the room its own sunrise glow.
By the end of the day, the space had a dirt floor, a patch of grass, and the beginnings of a stone path.
Naruto sat cross-legged, grinning at the rough landscape. "Now this… this is starting to feel like my place."
Jiraiya stood slack-jawed at the doorway. "…He's building a park. He's literally building a park in a pocket universe."
⸻
Day Five — Waterworks
The clones had failed five times before Naruto finally got it right.
He pressed his palm into the ground, channeling a seal keyed to a lake near their plateau. A tiny aperture tore open, shimmering with chakra, and water trickled through. He anchored it with a second seal for the outflow, connecting it back into the same lake.
A river sprang into being, winding through the pocket space with cheerful gurgles.
Naruto clapped his hands, delighted. "Fresh water, baby! Infinite ramen-broth potential!"
The clones cheered, splashing like children. One was already attempting to catch fish with a stick.
Kurama snorted. "You've caged the sea into a puddle. Pathetic… but functional. I almost approve."
Jiraiya pinched the bridge of his nose so hard it looked painful. "He's building plumbing inside a reality tear. Kami help me."
⸻
Day Seven — Home
By the week's end, the space stretched as wide as a small compound.
A modest wooden house stood at its center, built by clones who had bickered like carpenters the entire time. Beside it, a handful of trees grew, shaped from condensed chakra seeds Naruto had anchored into soil. The river wound lazily past them, glinting in the artificial sunlight.
Naruto stood at the doorway of his little house, hands on his hips, chest puffed out.
"This… this is it. My secret base. My training ground. My home away from home."
The clone beside him nodded proudly. "Not bad for an accident."
Jiraiya sat outside the pocket, staring into the shimmering door with a face that looked halfway between laughter and despair. "Minato, Kushina… your brat just built a village in his own dimension. And he thinks it's a clubhouse."
Naruto turned, flashing a grin over his shoulder. "Oi, Pervy Sage—welcome to Uzumaki Compound, dattebayo!"
Jiraiya dropped his face into his palms.
On the next morning the plateau was quiet again, dawn mist curling low over the rocks.
For once, no smoke clouds, no explosions, no screaming clones. Just silence, broken only by the rustle of the morning wind.
Naruto stood at the center, kunai in hand. Its blade gleamed faintly, etched with a seal tighter and cleaner than the messy spirals he'd started with a week ago. His blue eyes burned with focus.
This time, no shortcuts. No brute force. Just precision.
A clone crouched nearby, watching nervously. "Boss… you sure about this?"
Naruto nodded. "Yeah. I've shaped rivers in empty space. Built walls from nothing. If I can hold a whole house inside a pocket, then moving myself through space is nothing."
From deep within, Kurama's rumble echoed, grudgingly approving. "Finally, the idiot understands. Not hammering, not smashing—shaping. Space-time bends like metal, brat. Heat it, fold it, strike it sharp. That is control."
Naruto exhaled slowly, forming the seal with one hand. Chakra flowed clean, balanced, neither spiraling out of control nor crashing like waves.
The kunai flew from his grip, clattering against a boulder twenty meters away.
Naruto's world snapped into focus. The mark flared. Space folded—clean, sharp, like slipping through the seam of reality.
And in a flash—
He was there.
A sharp pop cracked the air. Dust rippled outward. Naruto staggered once, then caught himself, standing on the boulder where the kunai had landed.
He blinked. His breath hitched. Then he grinned so wide it hurt.
"…I did it."
The clone exploded in cheers. "He did it! He actually did it! Boss is cracked!"
The grin grew wider. Naruto hurled another kunai—fifty meters this time. Again, his chakra locked, space folded, and he vanished in a flash, reappearing instantly with his hand pressed against the blade.
Then another. And another. Each jump sharper, faster, smoother.
By the tenth leap, he was laughing—wild, joyous, unstoppable. "This is it! This is Flying Rajin! Dattebayo!"
⸻
From the cliff's edge, Jiraiya's pipe slipped from his mouth and clattered against the stone. His wide eyes followed Naruto's blurring form as he zipped across the battlefield, orange streak flashing from mark to mark.
Every time Naruto vanished, the air cracked like lightning. Every time he reappeared, his chakra was steady, unshaken, controlled.
"Impossible…" Jiraiya whispered. His throat was dry. "It took Minato years to master this. And this brat…"
He trailed off, watching Naruto's manic grin, his body moving in perfect rhythm with space itself. Not crashing through it, not forcing it open—sliding through reality as though he belonged there.
"…He's not copying Minato," Jiraiya realized, voice hoarse. "He's… rewriting the technique his own way."
Naruto skidded to a stop, panting, kunai still glowing faintly in his grip. The plateau was silent except for the fading crackle of space folding.
He stood tall, eyes blazing. Slowly, he reached into his scroll and unsealed the cloak he had bought months ago—white with black flames licking the hem. He shook it once, fabric snapping in the wind, then draped it over his shoulders.
Naruto tightened the ties at his collar, the cloak flaring behind him in the breeze. For a heartbeat, the morning light caught him just so—and he looked like a figure pulled straight from Konoha's history.
Jiraiya froze, breath caught in his throat. "Minato…"
Naruto glanced down at the kunai in his hand, then back up, determination burning hotter than the rising sun. His voice rang clear across the plateau:
"I'm not just the Nine-Tails' jailor. Not just some dropout. From today on… I'm Konoha's new Yellow Flash!"
The cloak billowed.
The mark flared.
And in a single blink, he vanished—
only to reappear behind Jiraiya in a golden flash of chakra.
Jiraiya stiffened. He hadn't even seen him move.
Naruto smirked, kunai twirling between his fingers. "Better get used to it, Pervy Sage. The world's gonna see me coming—and they won't be able to stop me."
From deep within, Kurama's growl was almost approving. "Hmph. So the brat dares claim the title of Flash… Bold. Reckless. Fitting."