"Naruto, are you okay? Are you hurt?" Haruno Sakura asked, shaking the unconscious Uzumaki Naruto.
Hearing his teammate's voice, Uzumaki Naruto opened his eyes in a daze, seeing Haruno Sakura and Sai's worried faces.
"Sakura, are you guys okay?" Naruto asked, concerned for his two teammates he hadn't seen in a while.
"You idiot, what could happen to us? It was you and Captain Yamato who got caught in the Dragon Vein Energy," Haruno Sakura retorted, exasperated, holding her forehead.
Haruno Sakura quickly checked both Uzumaki Naruto and Yamato, and seeing they were both perfectly healthy, she was relieved.
Scratching his head with an embarrassed chuckle, Naruto said, "Sakura, you must have been really impatient. Mukade has already been defeated, and we can go back now."
Naruto felt a bit guilty that they had fun in Loulan, while Sakura and Sai had to wait amid the ruins.
Sakura crossed her arms, looking annoyed, "Do I seem so impatient to you? I can't even wait a few minutes?"
"A few minutes?" Naruto was taken aback and looked at Yamato, remembering he'd spent a month over there in Loulan.
Yamato was equally confused and quickly asked Sakura to explain her perspective on the Mukade pursuit mission.
"You and Mukade were engulfed by the Dragon Vein Energy; I almost got caught too, but Sai rescued me in time. A few minutes later, the energy dissipated, and I saw only you two lying on the ground," Sakura explained.
Sai nodded in agreement, indicating that Sakura was completely accurate.
"Naruto, you said Mukade was defeated; what do you mean? We didn't even see him," Sakura asked, confused.
Naruto ran his hands through his hair, not knowing how to explain or understand what was going on.
Yamato pondered for a moment, trying to grasp the situation, he instinctively reached into his ninja pouch and pulled out a Kunai with the kanji 'master' on it.
Then Yamato attempted to enter the Breath of Water state, encountering no issues.
"Senior Mokgetsu's Flying Thunder God Kunai is still in my ninja pouch, and I can use the Breath of Water, so it's not an illusion," Yamato confirmed to himself that the strange journey had truly happened.
"Naruto and I have defeated Mukade together, mission accomplished, let's head back to Konoha immediately!" Yamato said after thinking for a while.
Time travel is really unbelievable, and saying it out loud would be doubted and could lead to bad actors researching the Dragon Vein Power for crimes, so Yamato decided not to explain for now and check the situation back in Konoha.
Saying this, Yamato immediately pulled Naruto aside and whispered a reminder.
Although slightly puzzled, Sakura refrained from asking more since Yamato was the team captain.
"I wonder if little Kakashi-sensei and the others succeeded," Naruto thought anxiously.
Before coming back, Naruto had prepared himself for the possibility of disappearing due to changing history. Being alive he felt happy, but he worried that Kakashi, Obito, and the others failed.
Yamato was equally curious, but his mind worked faster than Naruto's, beginning to test Sakura and Sai.
They traveled through time, but Sakura and Sai didn't. If history changed, their memories should have shifted accordingly.
"Sakura, do you know of a ninja named Habu Mokgetsu?" Yamato asked, probing on the way back.
Sakura thought for a moment and then shook her head, "Never heard of that name. Is he a famous ninja?"
Yamato and Naruto both felt their hearts sink. Yamato took a deep breath and looked at Sai, "How about you, Sai?"
"No, I haven't," Sai replied, shaking his head as well.
"Is the current Hokage still Grandma Tsunade?" Naruto couldn't help but ask.
If his father hadn't died, Namikaze Minato should still be the Hokage.
"Dumb Naruto, what nonsense are you saying? Who else but Tsunade-sama could be Hokage?" Sakura retorted, thinking Naruto was acting strange.
"What about Pervy Sage?" Naruto continued to ask.
"Naruto, I know you're very sad, but he already..."
After hearing Sakura's words, Naruto's face immediately fell, his eyes filled with bewilderment.
He felt like they traveled through time in vain, nothing changed, Senior Mokgetsu and his father were still gone, and Jiraiya still couldn't survive. What's more, the situations with Obito and Nohara Rin were also unclear.
Seeing Naruto like this, Sakura reviewed what she just said, realizing she hadn't said anything harsh.
"Naruto, what's wrong with you? You seem strange," Sakura asked.
Naruto remained silent, not answering Sakura's question.
Seeing this, Sakura started to get a bit annoyed but was stopped by Yamato before she could say anything.
"Focus on the road, let's hurry back to Konoha," Yamato said solemnly. He didn't blame Sakura, after all, she knew nothing, but he couldn't allow her ignorance to hurt Naruto either.
Sakura nodded and pushed her chakra to speed up the journey.
Yamato walked over to Naruto, patting his shoulder comfortingly, "Let's check back in Konoha, maybe history changed in a way that Namikaze Minato didn't become Hokage."
Naruto pulled out the photo that Obito took of him and Namikaze Minato, nodded heavily, and focused on the journey back.
Actually, to find out the answer, they didn't need to return to Konoha; they only needed to ask Sakura who the Fourth Hokage was, but Yamato didn't say this out loud. He hoped that during the return journey, time could ease Naruto's sadness a bit.