“Do you have enough time?” Minato kept his posture guarded, though the tension in his shoulders had dropped.
“Naruto, can you tell me everything that happened to you from the time you were born?”
“Sure.” Naruto offered a weak, exhausted smile.
He noted his father’s stance.
Minato had begun to believe him, but refusing the fist bump meant the older ninja was still calculating variables.
Naruto trusted his father’s brilliant mind implicitly.
He didn’t question the caution.
“Before I was even born, you became the Fourth Hokage.” Naruto lowered his head.
He pressed a hand to his stomach, over the fading seal.
“You earned it through your actions in the Third Shinobi World War.
But on the day of my birth, a masked man named Obito Uchiha bypassed the village security.
He took advantage of my mother’s weakened seal during childbirth.
He released the Nine-Tails.”
Naruto kept his voice steady as he recounted the decades of war, pain, and triumph.
Minato listened in absolute silence.
His physical tells betrayed him.
The rigid combat stance slowly bled into a heavy slump.
His grip on his kunai pouch loosened.
His jaw clenched as he absorbed the sheer weight of his future failures.
By the time Naruto finished, the calculating shinobi had vanished.
Only a devastated father remained.
“In the end, I killed the enemy,” Naruto rasped, his breath rattling in his chest.
“But everyone in Konoha was already dead.
I had no other choice but to cast this jutsu.
I hope you are all prepared to change this timeline.”
“You survived so much suffering,” Minato whispered.
Guilt fractured his usually calm voice.
Naruto looked up.
He saw the wet sheen in his father’s eyes.
The crushing weight of responsibility and sorrow radiated from Minato’s rigid posture.
“Actually, I did alright,” Naruto said softly.
His voice trembled.
“Shikamaru helped me.
Kurama or the one you known as Nine-Tails and all my companions supported me.
And you and Mom always believed in me.
Dattebayo.”
The edges of Naruto’s form began to fray into glowing embers.
“My time is almost up.
I’ve passed on what I needed to.
I leave this future to you, Dad.”
Naruto extended a hand.
A sphere of pure, condensed chakra materialized in his palm.
“This orb contains my memories leading up to my marriage, including the battles against the Otsutsuki.
You can project them by injecting Kurama chakra into the core.
If you channel enough chakra, you can broadcast these visions to the entire ninja world.”
Minato stepped forward.
He ignored every shinobi protocol and pulled the dying man—a man physically older than himself—into a desperate embrace.
“Thank you for everything you fought for, Naruto,” Minato said, his voice thick with unshed tears.
“Thank you for giving Kushina and me another chance.
Thank you for buying this world a different future.”
Minato tightened his grip as Naruto’s body turned to ash against his flak jacket.
“Whether you are born to us or not…
whether our child is a boy or a girl…
they will always be Uzumaki Naruto.
Kushina and I will build a happy home.
They won’t be ostracized.
They will have friends.
I swear it.”
Naruto’s legs dissolved into the wind.
He didn’t fight it.
“Thank you, Dad,” Naruto smiled.
It was a wide, genuine grin, identical to the boy who had once painted the Hokage monument.
“Being born your son…
was the proudest thing in my life.”
With a final rush of wind, Naruto vanished entirely.
Minato stood alone in the white void.
He swiped a hand across his eyes, clearing the moisture.
He stared at the glowing orb hovering in the empty space.
“I will find a way to bring you back, Naruto,” Minato murmured.
He wasn’t sure if he was speaking to himself or the lingering echoes of his son’s chakra.
But grief had to wait.
The Third Shinobi World War raged outside his mind.
Every second he lingered cost lives.
Minato sealed the memory orb deep within his subconscious, ensuring rapid retrieval.
He severed the mental connection.
Reality snapped back into focus.
The dirt of the training ground crunched beneath Minato’s sandals.
Rin still gripped Obito’s wrist.
Kakashi and Obito stood frozen, their eyes blown wide and glassy.
The memory transfer had occurred in a fraction of a second.
The shockwaves of this jutsu were currently ripping through the minds of shinobi across the globe.
On distant battlefields, seasoned veterans stumbled mid-swing.
But the elite survivors of the Fourth War possessed razor-sharp instincts; most evaded fatal blows, suffering only minor grazing wounds as the visions slammed into their psyches.
Obito gasped, violently sucking in air.
Kakashi staggered back.
The fog of the future lifted from their minds.
Kakashi stared at Obito.
His visible eye darted frantically between his teammate, his sensei, and Rin.
Obito swayed on his feet.
The phantom scent of blood and ash choked him.
He looked at Rin.
Her hand was still wrapped around his wrist.
He lunged forward.
Obito crushed Rin in a desperate, bone-breaking hug.
He buried his face in her shoulder.
“Rin!
You’re alive.
You’re alright.
Oh god, Rin.”
Caught completely off guard, Rin gasped for air.
Obito’s arms were locked like iron bands.
“Obito!” she wheezed, her face turning dark red.
“You’re crushing me!”
Obito flinched as if burned.
He leaped back, his hands shaking wildly.
“Rin!
Are you hurt?
I’m so sorry.
I didn’t mean to!”
Rin stood off to the side, rubbing her arms.
Her cheeks flushed crimson, coughing lightly to catch her breath.
Kakashi watched the display.
He crossed his arms tightly to hide his own tremors.
He stared at the weeping, hyperventilating idiot in front of him.
This moron orchestrated the Fourth Shinobi World War?
This crybaby manipulated the Akatsuki and nearly burned the world to ash?
Kakashi’s analytical mind violently rejected the memories echoing in his skull.
Obito hovered near Rin.
He frantically patted her back, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps.
Minato watched his student.
The memories of a masked man tearing Kushina away, of the Nine-Tails ravaging the village, burned fresh in his mind.
Obito Uchiha would murder his wife and orphan his child.
For a fleeting second, the invincible Yellow Flash stood paralyzed.
He did not know how to look at the boy.
Minato forced air into his lungs.
He buried the Hokage and summoned the teacher.
“You both saw the memories,” Minato said evenly.
“Do not doubt what you witnessed.
It was real.”
Rin blinked.
She looked up at Minato in utter confusion.
She had received nothing.
Obito shrank in on himself.
He dropped his gaze to the dirt.
Shame radiated from his trembling shoulders.
He couldn’t meet Minato’s eyes.
He had slaughtered his own sensei.
He had ripped the beast from Kushina’s stomach.
Minato watched the boy shatter.
He remembered Naruto’s dying words.
I hope you are all prepared to change this timeline.
The anger drained from Minato’s veins.
This was not the broken monster from the future.
This was a twelve-year-old boy who had just lived through decades of his own atrocities in a single second.
Minato took a step forward to intervene.
Rin beat him to it.
She stepped into Obito’s line of sight.
She tilted her head, her brown eyes searching his pale face.
“What’s wrong, Obito?
Did you do something bad?”
Obito’s throat clicked.
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
“Rin…
I…”
Rin smiled gently.
She reached out and placed a warm hand on his trembling shoulder.
“It’s okay, Obito.
No matter what you messed up, we can always fix it together, right?”