Chapter 2: Inherited Thunder
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New Mexico — May 3, 2011.
Rain poured down relentlessly as lightning tore across the dark horizon, briefly illuminating the night in the distance. The scent of wet earth and metal hung heavily in the air, thick with electricity.
Suddenly, a blue portal opened in the middle of a military base.
Spatial energy rippled through the air with a deep, resonant hum before stabilizing into a pulsating glow. Naruto emerged from it, startled by the sudden change—and even more so when he realized he had appeared high above the base.
The wind whistled past his ears as he plummeted toward the ground. He tried to react, but barely had time to register the impact with something—or someone—before losing his balance and crashing into the rain-soaked earth.
The muddy ground softened the fall somewhat, but the impact still knocked the air from his lungs.
Then, a distinct sound reached his ears.
Still dazed, he lifted his head and slowly turned toward the source of the strange noise, his vision blurred by the rain and lingering disorientation.
Only a few meters away stood a tall, powerfully built man, dressed in a simple light-blue short-sleeved shirt and dark jeans, completely drenched by the storm. His blond hair hung to his shoulders, and protruding from the center of his chest—right where his heart should have been—was an arrow he had never expected to receive.
The exiled god's eyes slowly lost their light as he fell backward, landing with a dull thud in the mud.
A thunderclap rumbled across the sky.
Naruto stared at the lifeless body for only a brief moment.
[Event Detected!]
[You have accidentally caused the death of Thor Odinson, the MCU's God of Thunder (Mortal).]
[Rewards: (Thor Odinson Bloodline), (+200 SP)]
Naruto looked at the new notification with curiosity before dismissing it. Right now, he was far more interested in figuring out where the hell he was and what was happening.
His gaze then shifted to the hammer the man—Thor Odinson, the God of Thunder—had been trying to reach.
[Name: Mjölnir]
[Bearer: Thor Odinson (God of Thunder)]
[Universe: Marvel / Earth-51721]
[Type: Divine Weapon / Thunder Conduit]
[Rank: B+]
[The legendary hammer forged by the dwarves within the heart of a dying star lies motionless. The symbol of the power of Thor, the God of Thunder, capable of summoning storms and shaking the heavens. Not just anyone may wield it, for it judges all who attempt to lift it.]
[Abilities: (Thunder and Lightning Manipulation), (Propelled Flight), (Weather Manipulation), (Enhanced Attributes), (Automatic Return), (Divine Thunder Channeling), (God of Thunder Strike)]
Naruto studied the weapon before him with interest.
Without hesitation, he calmly walked toward it, determined to see whether he could do with it what he had done with the so-called Space Stone.
Once he was close enough, he reached out and wrapped his hand around the divine weapon's leather-bound handle.
He didn't know exactly what it was or the true extent of its power... but he could tell it was far from an ordinary object.
[Object Identified: "Asgardian Divine Weapon – Mjölnir"]
[Would you like to establish a bond with this object?]
[Yes] - [No]
Naruto smiled the moment he saw the notification, as though he had been expecting something like this.
The instant he accepted, thin arcs of lightning began to dance across the hammer, crackling with restrained power that sent a tingling sensation across his skin.
[Artifact Obtained!]
[You have obtained Mjölnir, Thor Odinson's enchanted hammer. Having been acknowledged as its new bearer, you have inherited the power of the God of Thunder contained within this legendary weapon.]
[Rewards: (Power of Thor Odinson), (+250 SP)]
Naruto looked at the new notification with quiet curiosity before simply shrugging.
His attention remained fixed on the war hammer, which he had yet to pick up.
At the same time, he was curious to see what would happen after indirectly killing the man known as Thor.
His gaze shifted toward an elevated platform suspended by a crane.
Standing atop it was a man holding a bow, watching the scene with obvious surprise. Every muscle in his body was tense as he carefully assessed every movement.
Naruto soon sensed numerous agents closing in on his position.
Even so, he remained calm.
Almost instinctively, he slipped into a fighting stance, his hand drifting toward the hammer without actually gripping it.
Suddenly, a burst of orange light flared between the two sides.
A rectangular portal opened vertically in front of the blond boy, its warm glow standing in stark contrast to the storm raging across the military base.
A squad of soldiers clad in black armor immediately emerged from the gateway.
An orange TVA emblem gleamed across their chests, and each of them carried a dark baton whose energy core pulsed brightly at its tip.
Naruto watched them with curiosity, carefully studying their movements.
Before he could react, the newcomers began dealing with the archer and the surrounding agents, bringing them down with cold, mechanical precision.
Then a calm, deep voice echoed from within the orange light.
"A temporal sequence anomaly hiding in plain sight... It's been a long time since I've seen something like this."
A mature-looking man with the air of a seasoned bureaucrat stepped through the portal.
His slightly crooked nose and neatly combed-back silver hair framed a face adorned with a well-groomed mustache. He wore an immaculate brown TVA suit, complete with a perfectly tied ochre necktie and a utility belt fastened around his waist.
His eyes settled on Naruto.
He blinked.
"Why... he's just a human," he muttered, visibly perplexed. "And a child, at that."
The TVA scanners activated instantly.
Readings: Average human male physiology. No genetic enhancements. No traces of magical, hereditary, or any other detectable energy. No abnormal radiation signatures.
The only noteworthy aspects of the anomaly were the strange black eye marked by concentric rings, Captain America's Hydra variant shield... and an Infinity Stone in his possession.
Neither of those items should have existed at this point in time or in this universe, though seeing them wasn't particularly surprising.
Naruto's expression hardened when they began confiscating his belongings.
"Give them back," the little blond boy demanded firmly, unconsciously reaching for the hammer and cautiously wrapping his hand around its handle.
"I'm Mobius M. Mobius, Senior Analyst of the Time Variance Authority," Mobius declared with practiced professionalism. "You are under arrest for violating this universe's Sacred Timeline. And, unfortunately for you, none of the confiscated items will be returned. Initiate detention protocol... and reset the timeline."
Naruto said nothing.
He listened to every word.
He analyzed every inflection.
As he did, he noticed one of the soldiers approaching with steady steps, holding a collar-shaped device in one hand.
Fed up with the situation, the blond boy decided to put an end to it once and for all.Then something rising from the ground caught the nearest soldier's attention.
But by then...
It was already too late.
Mjölnir flew into Naruto's hand as though it had never belonged to anyone else.
The young Uzumaki pivoted with impossible ease.
The hammer carved a short, brutal arc through the air before slamming into the torso of the advancing Minuteman. The impact did more than send him flying several meters backward; the metallic crunch of his armor merged with the sickening sound of bones collapsing beneath a force no human body was ever meant to endure
The soldier was dead before he hit the ground.
Naruto stood motionless for a second, gripping Mjölnir tightly.
Rain streamed down his blond hair and across the engraved surface of the hammer as his cold, unwavering eyes remained fixed on the remaining agents.
And throughout it all, he felt absolutely nothing for having taken his first life—something he didn't even truly understand yet.
"Give me my things back," he ordered, his voice low but edged with unmistakable warning.
The Minutemen gave no reply.
They charged as one.
Their Time Batons sliced through the air, leaving trails of orange light as they moved to overwhelm him.
But Naruto moved.
And he moved well.
He slipped past the first strike with the slightest tilt of his body.
He pivoted on one foot to evade the second.
He ducked beneath the third before answering with an upward swing of Mjölnir that lifted its wielder off the ground and slammed him into the rain-soaked earth.
Another attacker tried to catch him from behind.
Naruto took a half-step backward and swept the hammer sideways, crushing the black armor as though it were made of paper.
There was a mastery to his movements that no child his age should possess—
A mastery Naruto himself hadn't realized he carried until that very moment.
Then he felt it.
A faint spark.
Mjölnir vibrated in his hand.
A surge of electricity coursed through his arm, climbed across his shoulder, and spread through his chest.
The storm overhead answered with a deeper rumble, as though it had recognized its new bearer.
Naruto raised the hammer.
The tiny spark he had felt moments earlier erupted into lightning, and he unleashed a fraction of its power.
The bolt was far more than a simple flash.
It became a towering pillar of blue-white energy that tore through the rain and split the air apart.
It struck the Minutemen head-on, piercing their armor, incinerating the energy cores within their Time Batons, and stopping their hearts instantly.
The shockwave reached Mobius as well, whose composed expression never had the chance to become anything else.
The thunderous blast shook the entire base.
When the light finally faded, nothing remained but smoking bodies scattered across the blackened mud.
[Event Detected!]
[You have eliminated Mobius M. Mobius along with several Minutemen, disrupting the balance of an organization responsible for overseeing the timelines.]
[Rewards: (+100 SP)]
They may have been agents of the TVA—the guardians of a so-called Sacred Timeline. But they were still nothing more than human variants.
Their bodies, though slightly enhanced, remained mortal before the power of the God of Thunder... especially when wielded by someone who should never have been deemed worthy.
When it was all over, the roar of the storm once again drowned out the silence left behind by the massacre.
At that very moment, the orange portal snapped shut, leaving the young Uzumaki momentarily bewildered.
He let out a quiet sigh, unable to understand why it had suddenly closed, before gathering his belongings and making sure nothing was missing.
The shield.
The gem.
One by one, every item was returned to its rightful place.
Then he looked up.
His gaze lingered on the spot where, only moments earlier, the strange orange portal through which those people had arrived had stood.
If there was one thing he had learned since awakening, it was that portals never appeared on their own.
There was always a device.
An anchor.
Or some kind of emitter.
And whatever had created that portal was most likely lying among the bodies scattered around him.
Without wasting another second, he began searching the fallen agents.
After examining them one by one, he gathered several items: a handful of batons, two cylindrical devices, and a few compact rectangular gadgets.
He instructed the System to scan them, and the information was immediately projected before him.
The batons were Time Batons.
According to the System, they possessed the ability to send any target to the Void, pruning them from reality itself as though they had never existed.
The cylindrical devices were Reset Charges, tools capable of erasing the precise point where a Nexus Event originated, thereby deleting the entire divergent timeline from existence.
And finally...
The rectangular device.
TemPad.
Exactly what he had been looking for.
The device allowed its user to travel to any point within the so-called Sacred Timeline, locate temporal anomalies, and facilitate timeline arrests.
It also functioned as both the key and anchor required to open temporal portals.
Naruto quietly studied the device for several seconds.
With the TemPad now in his possession, that strange portal was no longer a threat.
It was a doorway.
A rather convenient one, at that.
Though before anything else, he needed a safe place to store everything he had collected.
"Any suggestions, Aetheria?"
[Master, you may use the System Inventory.]
Naruto blinked.
"Inventory?"
[An inventory is a storage space linked directly to you. You may store any object that belongs to you. To activate it, simply touch the item and think "store." The process will be carried out automatically.]
The blond boy nodded slowly, taking in the explanation, especially after Aetheria demonstrated how it worked.
Without wasting another moment, he focused on the objects at his feet, touched them, and mentally commanded them to be stored.
A faint flash flickered through the air.
The next instant, the Time Batons, Reset Charges, and TemPads vanished from the ground as though they had never been there.
Naruto flexed his hand, confirming that Mjölnir still rested firmly in his grip.
For the time being, he decided to keep the hammer with him.
Afterward, he stored the red-and-black shield as well.
With that matter settled, he turned his attention back to where the orange portal had once been.
He then looked down at the device in his hand.
Following Aetheria's instructions, he managed to activate it.
However, before he even had the chance to do anything with it, something happened that left him utterly bewildered.
An orange portal burst open directly in front of him.
A split second later, an object shot out of it at tremendous speed.
Naruto dodged on instinct, and the object slammed into the ground with a loud metallic crash, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of numerous things shifting around inside it.
At the very same moment, the portal snapped shut.
The device in Naruto's hand immediately powered down, and a thin wisp of smoke began rising from it.
Throughout the entire ordeal, Naruto had no idea what the hell was happening.
Naturally, his curiosity got the better of him.
He turned his gaze toward the mysterious object that had just been hurled out of the portal.
( — 0.0.0.0.0 — )