"Lexon... Lexon..." Naruto tugged on the sleeve of Lexon, who was standing motionless in the entryway, looking at him with some worry.
"What's wrong?" Lexon's consciousness returned to his body from the alternate space within Naruto. He smiled at the anxious boy.
"Are you okay?" Naruto asked, concerned.
"Ah... I'm fine," Lexon replied. "Sorry to make you worry."
"Come, come, sit here." Little Naruto beckoned Lexon to sit at the low wooden table on the tatami in the center of the room.
Lexon looked around the room. It was indeed much tidier than before. He followed Naruto's lead and sat down at the table.
The two just sat there, looking at each other in silence.
"This is the first time I've invited a friend over," Naruto said, scratching his head, seeming to feel the atmosphere was a bit awkward.
"Want to play with something fun?" Lexon said with a smile.
"Yeah!" Naruto raised both hands in agreement.
Just as Lexon was about to pull the game console from his space ring, he suddenly felt a peeping sensation through his [Intuition].
'The Third Hokage...'
He instantly guessed the source of the prying.
He knew Sarutobi Hiruzen had a ninjutsu called the "Telescope Technique," which allowed him to use a crystal ball as a medium to observe scenes in Konoha. Furthermore, if he knew a person's chakra signature, he could locate and observe them at any time.
In the original story, Naruto was a frequent target of his spying.
Now Lexon was being watched along with him, so he naturally sensed it.
His expression didn't change. He continued to pull out a display screen and a full game console setup.
"Whoa!! What is all this!!" Naruto's face was full of surprise. As a child who had never seen such a thing, he was amazed. "What are all these things? Where did you pull them from, Lexon? Is it ninjutsu? So cool! I'm gonna be a ninja too, and become a Hokage like Grandpa Third!"
"These are tools for having fun... It's ninjutsu... Wanting to be a ninja is a good ambition... and becoming Hokage is an excellent goal." Lexon answered Naruto's questions one by one, smiling in approval of his ambition and goal.
"Mhm, mhm." Little Naruto nodded happily.
This was the first time he had said such things to anyone besides Grandpa Third, and receiving approval made him even happier.
"Lexon, want something to drink?" Naruto suddenly asked as Lexon was setting up the machine.
"Mn," Lexon replied.
Naruto then ran to the refrigerator and took out two cartons of milk, handing one to Lexon.
"Here! It's delicious!" little Naruto said.
Lexon finished setting up the machine and took the milk Naruto handed him. His eyes suddenly swept over it. He then snatched the milk from Naruto's hand and put it with the one Naruto had given him.
"Are you going to drink two?" Naruto looked at Lexon with innocent, puzzled eyes.
"Drink this, it's better." Lexon pulled two bottles of Coke from his space ring.
That milk was long expired, so Lexon didn't want little Naruto to drink it.
The Coke he took out was rather unusual.
It sold for 500 Reincarnation Points a bottle in the Reincarnator Plaza. While retaining the original taste, it had all the unfavorable factors that make one fat or stain teeth removed. It tasted even better than the original Coke and could even enhance a person's physical attributes to some extent.
The inside of the bottle was even specially engraved with a special "Ice Magic Crest" from some magical world, keeping the Coke at an optimal, ice-cold state at all times.
It was true "Otaku Happy Water."
So Lexon had bought a few cases to stock up.
"Can I drink this?" Little Naruto took the glass bottle, which felt cold to the touch. The black, bubbling liquid inside made him a little scared.
'This thing doesn't look drinkable...'
"It's delicious." Lexon demonstrated by opening the Coke bottle and taking a large, refreshing gulp of the carbonated drink.
Seeing Lexon's demonstration, Naruto could only skeptically open the cap and slowly take a small sip.
But after one sip, his eyes suddenly lit up.
'This feeling of bubbles popping in his mouth... This refreshing taste...'
Instantly, Naruto "glug, glug, glugged" down more than half the bottle.
"Hic!"
Naruto suddenly burped, a look of satisfied bliss on his face.
The child's first contact with Coke, and he seems to be deeply hooked.
'Did I just do something bad...?' Lexon thought, looking at Naruto's slightly ecstatic expression.
"Drink it slowly. Let's play a game now." Lexon lightly patted little Naruto's head, signaling him to stop drinking.
"Okay..." Naruto looked at the tiny bit of Coke left in the bottle with some regret.
'I shouldn't have drunk so much at once. Now there's only a little bit left...'
"Let's play." Lexon turned on the display, selected a two-player game called "Mario Maker," and handed a controller to Naruto, teaching him the functions of the buttons.
Naruto was a good learner. His little brain worked fast at this stage, and he memorized all the button functions in just a few tries.
With that, Naruto and Lexon embarked on the Mario Brothers' journey to save the princess.
...
Inside the bright Hokage's office.
Sarutobi Hiruzen, wearing the white Hokage robes, sat in his office chair, leaning over the crystal ball on his desk, observing the scene displayed on its surface.
"Space-time ninjutsu..." Sarutobi Hiruzen watched the two in the crystal ball, who were swaying left and right, happily playing the game. The wrinkles on his face tightened, and a grave expression appeared.
Lexon's move of pulling things from thin air had astonished him. 'No hand seals, no preparatory movements, just a completely casual and easy manner... If this kind of space-time ninjutsu were used in battle, it would be an absolute nightmare for the enemy.'
'An ocular jutsu? Has he already awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan?' Sarutobi Hiruzen guessed.
As an expert in ninjutsu, he naturally knew that members of the Uchiha clan gained special ocular jutsu after awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan.
'But... using a Mangekyo Sharingan's associated ocular jutsu consumes the eye's lifespan... Surely he wouldn't be so casual as to use a Mangekyo jutsu just to take out food, drinks, and toys, right?'
'And... I didn't see his eyes change into a Sharingan just now.'
'Then what is it? Is it really ninjutsu?'
"Uchiha Lexon..." Sarutobi Hiruzen picked up an investigation file from his desk, muttering the name.
[Reviews - Power St0nes - Comments are highly appreciated to keep me going.....(+50 chapters) patre0n.c0m/talecrafter]