Deep beneath Konohagakure, hidden within one of the village’s most secret underground facilities—
A tall, broad-shouldered man with long white hair pushed open the facility’s inner door.
He wore a sleeveless red haori and a pair of wooden geta.
Most distinctive of all were the crimson markings beneath his eyes, each one running from his lower eyelids to his jaw like a trail of bloody tears.
Instead of Konoha’s leaf symbol, the forehead protector on his brow bore a single large kanji—
「油」—Oil.
He was one of the Legendary Sannin.
Jiraiya.
Clearly familiar with the place, Jiraiya navigated the dim and twisting underground corridors without hesitation.
After several turns, he finally stopped before a sealed room.
Knock, knock, knock.
Even someone as carefree and unruly as Jiraiya apparently knew how to knock when the situation demanded it.
“Is that you, Jiraiya?
Come in.”
An aged voice sounded from inside.
Jiraiya opened the door and stepped into the room.
At its center stood a massive circular platform.
A young boy lay upon it, a strange apparatus covering his head.
Seated directly before the platform was another shinobi wearing an identical device.
The boy was bare-chested, and the entire surface beneath him was covered in dense, intricate arrays of runes and cursed seals.
Every line converged upon his exposed abdomen, forming an Eight Trigrams Seal—as though it were suppressing something terrifying within him.
The seated shinobi appeared to be connected to the boy through the apparatus on his head.
Two other people stood in the room.
One was a middle-aged shinobi wearing Konoha’s standard jōnin flak jacket, his dark hair tied into a high, spiky ponytail.
The other was the elderly Third Hokage—and Jiraiya’s teacher—
Sarutobi Hiruzen.
“What happened?” Jiraiya asked as he approached the platform.
“Why’d you call me back with an emergency signal of this level, old man?”
Only then did he get a proper look at the boy lying in the center.
Not that there was much to see.
The apparatus concealed the upper half of the boy’s face.
Still, the six whisker-like marks on his cheeks were unmistakable.
Jiraiya’s expression turned grave.
For some reason, the child stirred a strange sense of familiarity within him—especially when he noticed the strands of short blond hair peeking out from beneath the device.
The Third Hokage stared silently at the boy while taking several slow draws from his pipe.
Then, at last, he spoke.
“This boy is… Uzumaki Naruto.”
Jiraiya froze.
He was a man who had crossed battlefields drenched in blood and fire, yet the moment he heard the name Uzumaki Naruto, even he found his thoughts slipping into a daze.
It lasted only an instant.
Jiraiya immediately regained his composure, but his expression became even more severe.
“Sarutobi-sensei, what exactly are you doing?” he demanded.
“Didn’t we agree that this child would be allowed to live a normal life?”
The Third Hokage took another pair of slow puffs from his pipe before turning toward the silent shinobi standing beside him.
“Shikaku.
Explain the situation to Jiraiya.”
Nara Shikaku nodded.
“This is what happened, Jiraiya-sama.
Three days ago, Hokage-sama received a report from the Anbu stating that the Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki, Uzumaki Naruto, had begun behaving unusually.”
Shikaku paused briefly.
“Soon afterward, Naruto himself came to Hokage-sama and claimed that he had…”
His expression tightened.
“…seen the future.”
Jiraiya’s brow furrowed deeply.
“Seen the future?”
He glanced toward the boy on the platform.
“What does that mean?”
Shikaku answered with a solemn expression.
“He obtained eleven years’ worth of memories from his own future.”
Jiraiya’s frown deepened even further.
He understood every individual word Shikaku had spoken.
Yet when those words were put together, they became something utterly incomprehensible.
“Genjutsu?”
A shinobi’s instincts immediately drove him toward the most plausible explanation.
Had one of the other hidden villages already set its sights on Konoha’s jinchūriki?
Shikaku glanced at his close friend, Yamanaka Inoichi, who remained seated before the platform.
Then he shook his head.
“Based on everything Inoichi has examined so far, we have ruled out the possibility that these memories were implanted through genjutsu.”
“You’re saying…”
Even Jiraiya found it difficult to believe.
At that moment, the Third Hokage spoke once more.
“It would be best for you to witness them yourself.
That is the reason I summoned you back.”
As though recalling something painful, the old man slowly shook his head and sighed.
“It cannot be genjutsu.
Anyone who knows about… that matter… would never do something like this.”
That matter?
Jiraiya found the wording strange, but he did not ask.
Instead, he accepted the mental-link apparatus Shikaku handed him and placed it over his head without hesitation.
“I am going to connect my consciousness with yours and Uzumaki Naruto’s,” Inoichi explained from his seat.
“Once the link is established, you will be able to directly witness the additional memories inside Naruto’s mental world.”
Jiraiya nodded.
The Third Hokage continued smoking his pipe as he gazed at the small boy lying silently upon the platform.
His thoughts sank into a deep and troubled silence.
The flow of time within the mental world seemed far faster than in reality.
Only a few hours later, Jiraiya removed the apparatus.
He was no longer wearing the same expression he had when he first put it on.
There was only shock in his eyes.
Once again, he looked toward the quiet six-year-old boy resting upon the platform.
The Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki.
The son of his student, the Fourth Hokage.
The child of the previous Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki.
Uzumaki Naruto.
And in those future memories—
His own student.
“These memories aren’t fake.”
Jiraiya’s voice left no room for doubt.
“The details concerning Mount Myōboku were known only to Minato and me.
Minato is already dead.
There is no one alive who could create a genjutsu containing that level of detail.”
The Third Hokage and Shikaku exchanged glances.
His conclusion was exactly what they had expected.
An unnatural silence descended upon the room.
“Orochimaru, huh…”
In the end, Jiraiya was the first to speak.
Naruto’s memories did not contain every detail of the incident.
He had merely participated in the Chūnin Exams when the entire venue suddenly descended into chaos.
Not long afterward, he had been sent to pursue Sunagakure’s jinchūriki and his team.
By the time Naruto and the others returned, the disturbance had already ended.
But who were the people gathered in this room?
From the scattered fragments contained within Naruto’s memories, they had already reconstructed most of Orochimaru’s plan.
He would ally himself with Sunagakure to launch the Konoha Crush.
At the same time, he would secretly assassinate the Kazekage, manipulate the Sand shinobi, and use the invasion as an opportunity to strike at the Third Hokage.
And in that future—
The Third Hokage would die by Orochimaru’s hand.
“…”
Hiruzen quietly puffed on his pipe.
Then, without saying a word, he gave a faint smile.
When it came to the student who had abandoned the village, no one’s feelings were more complicated than his own.
A long silence once again filled the room.
…
There was simply too much information contained within Naruto’s memories.
Far too much.
Even the Third Hokage, praised throughout the shinobi world as the Professor, could not immediately process all of it.
Nor could Nara Shikaku, the brilliant strategist known as the Brain of Konoha.
The scenes they had witnessed continued to batter their minds long after the mental connection had been severed.
The Third Hokage immediately classified the entire matter as one of Konoha’s highest-level secrets.
For the time being, knowledge of it would be strictly limited to four people—
Sarutobi Hiruzen.
Jiraiya.
Nara Shikaku.
And Yamanaka Inoichi.
Hiruzen did not dare inform Shimura Danzō.
There was no telling what Danzō might attempt if he learned that something this extraordinary had happened to Konoha’s jinchūriki.
The four of them spent three full days carefully sorting through the eleven years of memories Naruto had received.
In the end, they identified several pieces of information that could alter the fate of the entire shinobi world.
Orochimaru’s Konoha Crush plan.
The numerous S-rank missing-nin gathered within the organization known as Akatsuki.
The secret of Pain, Akatsuki’s leader.
Uchiha Obito—the true culprit behind the Nine-Tails’ attack on Konoha.
The possibility that Uchiha Madara would one day return from the dead.
The remnants of chakra belonging to the Fourth Hokage and the previous jinchūriki, Uzumaki Kushina, sealed within Uzumaki Naruto.
Uchiha Itachi’s plans concerning his younger brother, Uchiha Sasuke.
The secrets of the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan and the Rinnegan.
And finally—
The truth behind the massacre of the Uchiha clan.
With an expression more solemn than ever before, the Third Hokage stared directly at Jiraiya.
“Jiraiya, are you truly determined to go to Amegakure?”
His voice was grave.
“Think carefully.
Even with the information contained in Naruto’s memories, the Six Paths of Pain will not be easy opponents.”
Jiraiya nodded without the slightest hesitation.
The faces of those three former students surfaced in his mind, filling his heart with an unbearable weight.
“This is one journey…”
His voice was quiet, yet unwavering.
“…I cannot avoid.”