The year was Konoha 47.
The roots of the current conflict stretched back to the Second Shinobi World War, when Sakumo Hatake—the White Fang of the Leaf—struck down the parents of a young Sand puppeteer named Sasori.
Sasori lived for revenge.
He trained for it.
But Sakumo chose to end his own life following a failed mission, robbing the boy of his vengeance.
Consumed by a hatred with nowhere to go, Sasori turned his sights on the Third Kazekage.
He blamed the village leader’s negligence for the Konoha invasion that had orphaned him.
Striking from the shadows, Sasori assassinated the Third Kazekage, stole the corpse, and abandoned Sunagakure as a rogue missing-nin.
The Kazekage’s disappearance crippled the Hidden Sand.
The village elders diverted all manpower to a frantic, fruitless search.
The borders weakened.
The secret leaked.
The Hidden Cloud Village, always hungry for military expansion, seized the opportunity.
Kumogakure launched a devastating surprise attack on Sunagakure, simultaneously declaring war on the Land of Earth and the Land of Fire.
The ninja world fractured.
In the desert, a shinobi named Rasa stepped up.
Wielding the Magnet Release: Gold Dust inherited from his predecessor, he anchored the Sand’s defenses and held the Cloud at bay.
But the dominoes had already fallen.
Not to be outdone, the Land of Earth declared war on both Fire and Lightning.
Even the isolationist Land of Water sealed its borders and declared war on the Land of Fire.
The Third Shinobi World War had officially begun.
Smoke hung heavy in the Hokage’s office.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, looked through the haze at Minato Namikaze.
“I’m entrusting everything to you.”
Minato kept his posture rigid.
“Is this really a good idea?
They are still just children.
Do we really want to send them to the front lines?”
Hiruzen took a long, slow drag from his pipe.
He exhaled a thick plume of smoke.
“Go.”
Minato bowed his head.
He turned and walked slowly toward the oak doors.
He understood the order, even if it churned his stomach.
He was leading Team 7 to the battlefield.
Kakashi Hatake, Obito Uchiha, and Rin Nohara.
They boasted an impressive roster on paper—a Jonin in Kakashi, a Chunin in Obito, and Minato’s own Kage-level strength.
But aside from Minato, they were only twelve years old.
Sending pre-teens into a war zone was a massive gamble.
But Konoha was bleeding.
The Second War had culled their elite, and the peace that followed was far too brief.
Sakumo Hatake was dead by his own hand.
Tsunade had abandoned the village to drown her grief, and Jiraiya was constantly away tracking distant threats.
Even with Orochimaru still in their ranks, the veteran forces were spread dangerously thin.
The village had zero time to recuperate.
Hiruzen had no other pieces left on the board.
There was no other choice but to force the children to grow up as quickly as possible.
Lost in his thoughts, Minato’s sandals hit the dirt of the training ground.
Kakashi sat on a wooden post, his arms crossed and his visible eye narrowed in annoyance.
Rin sat nearby, swinging her legs with a soft smile.
A familiar, chaotic chakra signature barreled toward them.
Obito Uchiha materialized in a cloud of kicked-up dust.
He skidded to a halt.
“Sorry, Minato-sensei!
I’m late because I was helping an old lady pick up something she dropped.”
Kakashi dropped from the post.
“Punctuality is the most basic requirement of a shinobi.
If you can’t even manage that, you should quit being a ninja.”
Obito clenched his fists.
He rolled up his sleeves.
“What did you say, you arrogant jerk?”
Rin slid between them.
She grabbed Obito’s wrist and pulled him back.
“Alright, alright.
Obito was late because he was helping someone.
Let it go this time!”
“Rin, you’re the best,” Obito beamed.
He shot a glare over her shoulder.
“Unlike this trash.”
Kakashi turned his head away, ignoring him entirely.
Minato chuckled awkwardly.
He raised a hand to speak, but the sky suddenly ignited.
A blinding streak of light pierced the daylight.
It instantly shattered into countless glowing meteors.
Most rained down upon the distant horizon, but three shot directly toward Konoha.
The brightest meteor aimed straight for Minato.
The other two curved toward Kakashi and Obito.
Minato dropped his center of gravity, but before his muscles could even twitch, the light slammed into his chest.
Sound vanished.
Minato blinked against a vast, endless expanse of white.
He had been pulled into his own mindscape.
He instantly suppressed his chakra signature and fell into a defensive stance, his eyes scanning the empty horizon.
“Long time no see, Dad…
dattebayo.”
The voice echoed through the white void.
The tone was foreign, carrying a heavy, exhausted weight, but the verbal tic at the end belonged entirely to Kushina.
Minato kept his hands hovering near his kunai pouches.
“Dad?
Who are you?
Are you sure you’ve got the right person?
I’m not married yet!” It was a calculated lie, a verbal probe designed to test the intruder’s intelligence and gather intel.
A figure slowly stepped out of the white mist.
He possessed short, spiky blond hair and dull blue eyes.
Six distinct whisker marks scarred his cheeks.
“My name is Naruto Uzumaki,” the man said.
He offered a tired, helpless smile.
“I am the son of you and Kushina Uzumaki.
I come from Konoha, in the year 85.”
The man’s eyes were a normal, bright blue.
Because Ashura and Indra were brothers, Naruto and Sasuke Uchiha shared the same chakra source—the Sage of Six Paths.
Thanks to this resonance, Naruto maintained absolute control over his newly acquired Sharingan, deactivating the crimson glare completely when not in use.
“I know it’s difficult to convince you of this immediately,” Naruto said.
He raised his right hand and extended a closed fist.
“But just touch my fist and look at the future.
You’ll understand.”
Minato analyzed the man’s facial structure, his posture, the cadence of his voice.
He calculated he was perhaps three percent convinced.
He did not move his feet.
Exchanging physical contact with an unknown entity in a mental landscape was a lethal risk.
If the man was telling the truth, a verbal explanation would suffice.
He could always memorize the audio.
If this was a trap, stepping forward meant death.
“So, Naruto,” Minato said smoothly, keeping his distance.
“What brings you here?”
Naruto let his fist drop.
He rubbed the back of his neck and let out a long sigh.
“Because my world was destroyed by the Otsutsuki clan.”
The exhaustion in his voice deepened.
“I burned my own life to bring back the memories of everyone who participated in the Fourth Shinobi World War, and I gave those memories to them.
But they are somewhat incomplete.
Resurrecting so many consciousnesses across such a massive time span required more chakra than I had left.
I had to directly delete some useless memories to maintain the jutsu.”
Naruto looked down at his empty hands.
“The battles against the Otsutsuki are preserved.
But for the others, they can only see the timeline up to the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War.
And if they died during the war…
they can only see their memories up to the exact moment of their death.”