As quickly as it had appeared, the cosmic void vanished, taking with it the supernatural lights and resonant voices. Naruto blinked, and the world reformed around him. He was back in his apartment, the sunlight still filtering through the curtains. Time hadn't moved a single inch. The cup of ramen was shattered on the floor, but the water was still faintly steaming.
It was 7:00 in the morning—the day of his exam.
Naruto stood frozen for a moment, his heart pounding—not with fear, but with dizzying excitement. "Was that a dream? A hallucination caused by hunger?" He pinched his arm. The pain was sharp and real. "No. No, it wasn't a dream."
He could feel the power bubbling within him—not just as an abstract idea, but as an overwhelming physical certainty. It didn't consume him; it completed him. It was an inexhaustible source, a bottomless well of energy resonating in harmony with each beat of his heart.
His senses, once ordinary, were now hyper-developed. His new eyes captured details invisible to the naked eye. He could hear his neighbors' conversations through the walls—clearly, as if they were in the same room. He perceived the whisper of the wind miles away, the rustling of grass sprouting beneath the earth, the heartbeats of birds perched on rooftops. The air was rich with scents he had never noticed before—the damp earth, the distant perfume of flowers, the warmth radiating from stones. Through the Eye of the Multiverse, he could now perceive the subtle energy flows of living beings, seeing them as diffuse, colorful auras surrounding people, animals, and even plants. An intuitive understanding of things—an enhanced mental clarity—had replaced his usual confusion. He now grasped concepts that had once been incomprehensible to him, as if the Multiverse had downloaded millennia of wisdom into his mind.
Naruto raised his hands and examined them closely. They were the same—calloused, scarred from training. He rushed to his cracked mirror. The reflection was that of the same blond boy with blue eyes and fox-like marks on his cheeks… except for his eyes. His irises were now a deep, iridescent gold, flecked with star-like patterns. "I'm the same… but I'm not." The weight of the Multiverse's words—"responsibility," "balance," "Guardian"—resonated within him with palpable intensity.
"How am I going to use all of this?" His dreams of becoming Hokage, of earning recognition, of playing pranks to get attention—all suddenly felt small, almost insignificant in the face of the vastness of his new role. "But then again," his mind sharpened, "they also feel incredibly more achievable now." He could now accomplish those dreams—and so much more.
A primal instinct, stronger than his usual impulsiveness, whispered a fundamental truth: this power must remain hidden—for now. The village, with its suspicion toward him, its fear of the unknown... "They wouldn't understand. They would fear me," he thought, with a touch of bitterness, but also realism. "I have to lay low. Act normal. At least for a while. I'm Naruto Uzumaki, the ninja-in-training. That's my cover identity—and it must stay that way."