The Ninja Academy
Inside one of the classrooms, Nara Shikamaru sat with his cheek propped against one hand, looking as lifeless as ever.
While halfheartedly listening to Iruka-sensei drone on at the front of the room, he turned toward Akimichi Chōji, who was seated beside him and wholeheartedly devouring a bag of potato chips.
“Hey, Chōji.
We haven’t seen Naruto around for the past few days…” Shikamaru muttered.
“Do you know what happened to him?”
“Now that you mention it…”
Miraculously, Chōji did not pause his hand even once as he continued feeding chips into his mouth.
He narrowed his round eyes in thought, then shook his head.
“I guess he hasn’t come to the Academy for several days.
That is pretty strange… Sasuke hasn’t shown up for almost a month either.”
Shikamaru fell silent.
He turned his pair of dead-fish eyes back toward Iruka and quietly allowed his thoughts to drift elsewhere.
Sasuke has been absent for an entire month, but Iruka-sensei hasn’t said a word about it.
And now Naruto, too…
Did something happen to the two of them?
At the front of the classroom, Umino Iruka continued his lengthy lecture on basic shinobi knowledge.
Yet even as he spoke, a corner of his mind remained occupied by Naruto’s situation.
After all, the person who had requested Naruto’s leave of absence was an Anbu operative serving directly under the Third Hokage.
That alone was enough to make Iruka uneasy.
Just what happened to Naruto that even the Anbu became involved?
Knock, knock.
A sound came from the classroom door.
Every student turned toward the entrance.
“Ah!
It’s Sasuke-kun!”
“Sasuke-kun finally came back!”
“We missed you so much, Sasuke-kun!”
The young kunoichi immediately began whispering excitedly among themselves.
Uchiha Sasuke stood in the doorway.
He had grown noticeably thinner during his absence, and his complexion looked dreadful.
Most striking of all was the icy aura surrounding him—one that warned everyone to stay away.
It was completely different from the aloof coolness he had possessed before.
Back then, Sasuke had resembled a proud young lion.
Now, he looked more like a wounded lone wolf.
“Ah, Sasuke…” Iruka faltered for a moment.
“Come in.”
He had already heard the news.
The Uchiha clan had been wiped out in a single night.
Sasuke did not acknowledge him.
With his schoolbag hanging from one shoulder and a dark expression on his face, he slowly walked toward the back of the classroom.
He chose an isolated seat with no one nearby and silently sat down.
“Sasuke-kun…”
From across the classroom, Haruno Sakura stared at him with concern.
An inexplicable feeling told her that something unimaginably terrible had happened to Sasuke.
However, Sasuke’s eyes did not contain her.
They did not contain anyone in the classroom.
Or rather—
The only person reflected in his mind was someone who was not there.
Sasuke rested his chin upon his clasped hands and stared coldly ahead.
The dim light within his eyes flickered like twin ghostly flames.
He would never forget.
That man’s Sharingan.
Those hateful eyes.
Just you wait, Uchiha Itachi.
One day, I will kill you with my own hands.
Iruka had just opened his mouth to resume the lesson when—
Knock, knock.
The classroom door sounded once again.
Everyone turned toward it for a second time.
“Uh…”
Uzumaki Naruto stood awkwardly in the doorway, scratching the back of his head.
Unlike the Uchiha clan’s cool young master, Naruto did not possess the ability to remain unfazed while every eye in the room focused upon him.
“This is awkward…” he mumbled.
“Maybe I should’ve sneaked in through the back door instead.”
The classroom immediately erupted into laughter.
“Even after being gone for a few days, Naruto’s still exactly the same,” Inuzuka Kiba laughed, with Akamaru perched atop his head.
“What a strange guy.”
Yamanaka Ino rested her chin against one hand.
She was far more disappointed by the fact that Sasuke had chosen to sit so far away.
“N-Naruto-kun…”
Hyūga Hinata quietly murmured his name, her pale, pupil-less eyes following him from afar.
Iruka felt the familiar headache that had been absent for the past few days suddenly return in full force.
He waved impatiently.
“Enough already!
Hurry up and take your seat!”
Naruto shrugged before jogging toward the back of the classroom.
He glanced around—
Then, to everyone’s surprise, he headed directly toward Sasuke and sat down two seats away from him.
Those who noticed could not help but stare.
Sasuke was practically radiating frost today, yet Naruto had approached him with the same carefree expression as always.
Just how insensitive could one person possibly be?
However, they had misunderstood Naruto.
Although he had always been rather thickheaded, he normally kept as far away from Sasuke as possible.
There was no reason he would willingly approach an arrogant show-off who was inexplicably popular with every girl in class.
Naruto had chosen this seat for one reason alone.
Curiosity.
He knew perfectly well why Sasuke looked as though his entire world had been destroyed.
Every member of his clan had been murdered by the older brother he admired more than anyone else.
Naruto could not truly comprehend that kind of pain.
Still, he could at least try to imagine it.
What he was most curious about was how his future self had ever come to regard someone like Sasuke as his closest friend.
Perhaps it was because of the eleven years of future memories inside his head, but Naruto felt as though something about him had changed.
It was not as though he had suddenly grown eleven years older.
Aside from the additional knowledge and experiences, he did not feel particularly different from how he had been several days ago.
Perhaps maturity was nothing more than the accumulation of experience.
Now that eleven years’ worth of knowledge had crossed the boundary of time and settled inside his heart, Naruto could no longer feel that same—
That same resonance with the current Sasuke that existed within his future memories.
Perhaps the moment he inherited the memories of his seventeen-year-old self, his life had already begun moving along a completely different path.
Was that why he no longer felt lonely?
Was that why the future no longer frightened him?
Naruto remained seated, lost in his wandering thoughts.
Not a single word of Iruka-sensei’s lecture entered his ears.
…
A fine rain fell endlessly from the heavens.
“This place…”
Jiraiya stood beneath the rain, gazing upward at the cloud-covered sky.
“…It’s almost as though it’s crying.”
Behind him, the summoned toad within the nearby pond quietly slipped beneath the water and disappeared.
Moisture filled the air.
The humidity was so thick that one could almost mistake the place for the depths of the ocean.
The damp chill seeped into the body, dragging one’s mood downward whether they wanted it to or not.
“So, shall we begin…?”
Jiraiya found a secluded location and swiftly formed a sequence of hand seals.
“If my opponent is the Six Paths of Pain, then I’ll have to go all-out from the very beginning.”
His hands stopped.
“Summoning Jutsu!”
Poof!
Poof!
Two clouds of white smoke burst above Jiraiya’s shoulders.
When the smoke cleared, two elderly toads of modest size had appeared, one sitting upon each shoulder.
“Jiraiya-chan, what made you suddenly summon the two of us old folks?”
Shima sounded thoroughly puzzled.
She could barely remember the last time Jiraiya had summoned her.
Worse still, she had not even begun preparing dinner.
“Is there an enemy powerful enough to make you go all-out from the beginning?” Fukasaku asked directly.
“Yeah…”
Jiraiya’s voice became strangely distant.
“He’s someone who has already killed me once.”
Before the two Sage Toads could properly react, Jiraiya suddenly clasped his hands together.
“Gweh—!”
With a wet, unpleasant sound, a long and narrow toad crawled out from his mouth.
“Jiraiya, what did you call me out for?”
Gerotora folded his arms, clearly irritated.
He had been enjoying a perfectly comfortable sleep until Jiraiya rudely summoned him.
“For the sake of keeping Naruto’s seal key safe, I want you to return to Mount Myōboku for now,” Jiraiya explained.
“Is the situation really that dangerous?” Fukasaku asked in surprise.
He knew Jiraiya’s true strength better than most.
Within the current shinobi world, there should have been very few enemies capable of making Jiraiya act with such extreme caution.
“Who knows?” Jiraiya replied lightly.
“I’m only taking precautions.”
Gerotora disappeared in another puff of white smoke.
Once he was gone, Jiraiya bit his fingertip and drew two angular lines of blood beneath his eyes.
“Fukasaku-sama, Shima-sama—I’m going to enter Sage Mode now.”
“Honestly, you brat!” Shima scolded.
“Isn’t it about time you learned how to enter Sage Mode on your own?”
Despite her complaints, she and Fukasaku immediately began drawing natural energy toward Jiraiya, helping him enter Sage Mode more easily.
A perfect Sage, huh…?
Jiraiya recalled what he had witnessed within Naruto’s future memories and smiled silently.
Just how far will Minato’s son grow along this new path?
To locate Nagato and Konan, who were concealed somewhere within Amegakure, Jiraiya had chosen to enter Sage Mode from the very beginning.
However—
Before long, Jiraiya lowered the hands he had kept clasped together while gathering natural energy.
His appearance had undergone a visible transformation.
His face, hands, and feet had all taken on distinct toad-like characteristics.
He had successfully entered Sage Mode.
“So, you noticed me from the beginning…”
Jiraiya remained where he stood and spoke softly.
“Now that I’m looking carefully, every drop of this rain contains a faint trace of chakra.”
His eyes shifted slightly.
“Is this Nagato’s jutsu, Konan?”
From the branches of a tree behind him came the cold voice of a blue-haired woman dressed in a black cloak patterned with crimson clouds.
“It has been a long time…”
Konan gazed down at him without emotion.
“Jiraiya-sensei.”