Standing in a large empty cylindrical chamber that looked like it was meant to house something vaster than an entire kingdom, on the head of a single floating pathway in the center, were three people.
Ultra Fighter looked at Jiraiya with a confused expression.
"What do you mean that three pronged kunai is stopping the flow of what could very well be a source of energy that allows people to travel through time? How can it be as simple as stabbing a kunai into a rock?!"
"Well…" Jiraiya started while looking at the scroll that mentioned the sealing array that Minato had set up to stop the chakra of the Ryumyaku vein from exploding outwards unstably and sending someone back in time.
Jiraiya then looked at Ultra Fighter and whispered as if he were talking to himself, "I thought you knew that using this would send us back in time."
"I only know that using this will send us back in time. I didn't know that a literal linchpin was being used to control it!" Ultra Fighter said, still bewildered that a simple kunai had been used by Minato to erect some sort of seal on the Ryumyaku vein.
Shizune on the other hand looked eager, not realising Jiraiya was speaking to Ultra Fighter, "So we'll go back in time and prevent Tsunade-sama from ever performing that jutsu, Jiraiya-sama!?"
Jiraiya quickly shook his head.
"We can't do that. Since according to Minato it is already an established fact in our world and our minds. Unless we don't want to erase our world we can't change what has happened, only lay witness to it."
Shizune frowned, "That's no help at all then."
But Jiraiya shook his head, "While we can't directly change the outcome, we can help Tsunade fake the outcome and then reveal herself like a magic trick."
Shizune frowned, not particularly understanding what that meant.
Ultra Fighter on the other hand couldn't wait for Jiraiya to complete his explanation and spoke calmly, "Are you sure you want to come with me? I'm a soul… so as long as I travel back to the past I won't age… but I can't guarantee the same for the two of you."
Jiraiya frowned and mumbled again hoping to keep Ultra Fighter's existence a secret from Shizune since he was the one who handed the sealing scroll to Tsunade and knowing that he was coming along with them would make Shizune angry.
"I told you already that I can't take that risk. Had even you found a way to save Tsunade, she'd have at the very least informed me in the near past about it. The very fact that she did not means that something stranger than what we can imagine happened to her."
Ultra Fighter thought about it for a second and nodded, "Alright then… let's go back in time. I don't know if it'll do anything but let's just hold each other so that we're not separated by the eddies of time."
Jiraiya nodded and extended his hand to both Ultra Fighter and Shizune.
Shizune looked at Jiraiya's hand and spoke softly, "We'll be able to save Tsunade-sama right?"
Jiraiya smiled and nodded, "Believe me! For I am the Toad Sage! There's nothing in this world that can be impossible for me!"
Shizune smiled for the first time in the last few days and calmly gripped Jiraiya's hand.
Ultra Fighter being a soul couldn't really touch anything, but he did his best to make it seem like he too was holding Jiraiya's hand.
As they stood in front of the sealed Ryumyaku vein whose cap was Minato's three pronged kunai, Jiraiya used his hair which seemed like it was a living thing of its own to pull out the kunai from the ground.
Almost as soon as the kunai was pulled out by Jiraiya's hair, the ground underneath them trembled.
There was no question left if Minato's sealing formula was working to keep anything locked behind it.
Purplish light filled the large cylindrical chamber as a gush of wind rose from deep below like a dragon that had been asleep for long had awakened.
It almost felt like whatever sealing formulae Minato had used to keep all this chakra locked behind was from a being that had been forced asleep since it rose with such energy that even Ultra Fighter found himself afraid, as if he could disintegrate and never be found again.
But that was only the prelude.
It was just a calm puff of air before the first roar of light.
All of a sudden, the trio of people standing at the head of the pathway over the cylindrical chamber saw the edges of it start to disintegrate as a purple light shot up from below, going high into the sky and disappearing like a beacon.
The purple light expanded and within seconds of it coming into existence, it completely engulfed the trio of Jiraiya, Shizune and Ultra Fighter, sending them across time and into a world unknown.
***
Jiraiya woke up to the sound of a little girl singing.
His first instinct was to reach for his kunai, but he quickly overrode it and looked around for Shizune.
Shizune appeared safe, she was wrapped in his embrace and waking up slowly herself.
Then Jiraiya looked around himself to find Ultra Fighter, but he found no one like it.
Jiraiya looked around some more and spotted a little girl looking down on him from the top of an arch.
"....uh… who're you?"
***
Haurto looked in the direction of Roran and sighed for the umpteenth time that day.
'Ultra Fighter should've already gone back to the past… so why hasn't the one that travelled back to the present come to merge with me once again?'
Haruto couldn't quite put a finger on why that had happened.
'Got any ideas Okabe-san?'
'Unfortunately time travel is complicated and messy… any number of things could've gone wrong.'
'You mean Ultra Fighter could've died and been eradicated by whatever force was used to send him back in time?'
'Possible… but it could also be possible that he was sent so far back in time that he lost track of time.' Okabe said in a rather solemn tone.
'Huh… but I have Occlumency… and perfect memory… how far back in time would I have to go to actually start forgetting the date I split from myself and travelled back in time?'
There was only silence in response to that question for a while before Grindelwald spoke calmly, 'The human brain can store up to five thousand years of memories perfectly… any more and things will start fraying.'
'What even was this planet five thousand years ago like?' Haruto questioned again. 'Surely my other self would've been intelligent enough to simply develop a stasis jutsu that would allow him to sleep for long periods of time without losing track of time?'
There was only silence once again among the entire Template Inventory Space.
Eventually Haruto simply shrugged, 'I'm sure my other self would have done something half decent at the very least. Maybe he just wanted to meet all the key figures in the history of the Naruto world… and didn't fall asleep.
Even if he dies, it'll only take me using the Hashirama cells to create an artificial soul to absorb to make myself whole again.' Haruto said casually like it was no big deal or evil at all.
***
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