"The Fourth Hokage… yeah. He really was the perfect ninja."
Jiraiya let out a quiet sigh. Every time he thought of Namikaze Minato, he felt that familiar pang of regret. If Minato were still alive, none of this would be so complicated.
More than ten years had passed.
By now, Minato would be in his prime.
At that age, a ninja stood at the peak of their power. If he were still guarding the village, Orochimaru wouldn't dare step foot in Konoha.
Inside the video, Tsunade spoke of the Hokage title with nothing but disdain.
Naruto snapped.
He didn't care about the gap between their strength. He challenged her outright.
The result was predictable.
Tsunade didn't even need to move properly. With a single finger, she crushed him.
"Hey, kid," she said as Naruto staggered, barely conscious. "Before you pass out, answer me this. Why are you so obsessed with the name Hokage?"
Naruto forced himself upright, eyes blazing.
"I'm not like you! I'm definitely going to inherit the Hokage title! Because being Hokage… being Hokage is my dream!"
For a fleeting moment, Tsunade saw Dan.
She saw Nawaki.
They had said the same thing once.
Had she ever dreamed like that too?
Maybe she had.
But after losing the two people she loved most, that dream had become something she couldn't even bear to hear.
Naruto seized the chance and unleashed his half-finished Rasengan.
It didn't matter.
Tsunade flicked a finger, split the ground with a crack, and sent him flying.
Watching herself in the video, seeing how Naruto's words had shaken her, how she had even agreed to give him a chance, Tsunade narrowed her eyes.
If he could master the Rasengan within a week, she would acknowledge his potential to become Hokage.
"Talk Release? Talk-no-Jutsu?"
She let out a soft breath.
On the surface, she had acted stubborn, still unconvinced.
But in truth, something inside her had shifted in that moment.
"So it really is that infectious?"
She didn't understand.
If empty words about ninja way, dreams, inheriting titles, were enough to change her heart, she would never have left Konoha to wander in the first place.
The wound in her heart ran too deep.
Nawaki's death had broken her.
Dan's death had shattered what remained.
She had watched him die in front of her, heard him say he didn't want to die, that he still had so much left to do.
And she had been powerless.
In that situation, could a few passionate words really reach her?
For the first time, she gained a clearer sense of what Kaede Kitahara had meant in his diary. Talk Release. Talk-no-Jutsu. The infectious nature of Asura.
"Asura…"
Her thoughts drifted.
Kaede had mentioned Asura and Indra before.
According to the diary, the previous Indra had been Uchiha Madara, and the current one was Uchiha Sasuke.
Uzumaki Naruto was this era's Asura.
If that was true, then the previous Asura…
Was it her grandfather, Senju Hashirama?
Two generations, decades apart.
There had to be a connection.
The previous Asura and Indra had been Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara, the two who had once joined forces to end an age of war.
Their strength had surpassed ordinary ninja by far.
And now, the current Asura and Indra were labeled by Kaede as the saviors of this era.
Was Asura merely a title?
Something given to the strongest of the age?
Or was it inheritance?
Was it tied to bloodline?
Or something deeper, something she didn't yet understand?
Tsunade's mind churned.
Outside the scene, everyone had watched Naruto sway Tsunade's iron heart with nothing but words.
"Talk Release… Talk-no-Jutsu," Uchiha Itachi murmured. "It does feel different. Reckless, maybe. But there's something reassuring about it."
Uchiha Sasuke, however, was focused on something else entirely.
"The Rasengan…"
"So that's how that dead-last learned it? The Fourth Hokage's technique?"
He frowned.
In his current timeline, Naruto had already mastered the Rasengan much earlier than what the video showed.
And it hadn't been Jiraiya who taught him.
It had been Kaede Kitahara.
If the Rasengan was the Fourth Hokage's secret technique, then how did Kaede know it?
"So the future really has changed because of him…"
Sasuke lowered his gaze.
If the future could change…
Then could he become stronger than he had originally been?
Naruto had learned the Rasengan early.
He himself had mastered Chidori ahead of time.
Their current strength far exceeded what it should have been at this stage.
The future wasn't fixed.
And he would become stronger.
"After learning the Rasengan, Naruto looks more like sensei," Hatake Kakashi said quietly.
The same blond hair.
The same technique.
At first, he had never thought Naruto resembled Namikaze Minato that much.
But once he stripped away certain things in his mind, the resemblance became impossible to ignore.
If Naruto changed out of that worn, messy jacket.
If the whisker marks weren't there.
If he grew a little taller.
If he weren't so much like Uzumaki Kushina in personality.
What remained would be almost a smaller version of Minato.
The scene shifted again.
The agreed time arrived.
Tsunade went alone to meet Orochimaru.
Jiraiya, meanwhile, had been drugged.
He couldn't even mold Chakra.
Only now did everyone understand what Kaede had meant earlier about Jiraiya being drugged and not at his peak.
And the only person who could have pulled that off right under Jiraiya's nose…
Was Tsunade.
"That idiot still hasn't learned any caution. Still flirting around like it's peacetime," Tsunade muttered in the hot spring.
Fine, she had drugged him.
But did he really have zero responsibility for being that careless?
The video cut to Tsunade facing Orochimaru.
"I'll heal your hands," she said, her back turned to him. "In exchange, you will not touch the village."
Orochimaru gave a low chuckle.
"Very well."
For a moment, it seemed she had chosen between the village and her loved ones.
Orochimaru lifted his hands, barely steady.
Then a shuriken shot through the air and knocked her away.
Kabuto had arrived at the critical moment.
"What is this?" Orochimaru's voice darkened. "You betray me now, Tsunade?"
Kabuto hadn't offered any explanation. He had simply acted.
Orochimaru trusted him completely. If Kabuto had intervened, there was only one possibility.
Tsunade had intended to break their agreement.
Only then did the tension ease among the onlookers.
If she had truly restored Orochimaru's hands, it would have been the beginning of disaster.
"I always trust your loyalty, Kabuto," Orochimaru said. "And your ability to see through Tsunade's attack."
"I was part of the medical corps as well," Kabuto replied. "I could sense the killing intent rising within her Chakra."
"Medical corps…"
Kakashi mentally filed that away. He had been looking for more information on Kabuto and had found little.
Now he had a lead.
"Looks like Orochimaru left plenty of pieces behind in Konoha," Kakashi muttered.
He remembered Mizuki from the academy, the one who had manipulated Naruto into stealing the Scroll of Seals.
Under interrogation, Mizuki had turned out to be one of Orochimaru's spies.
Technically, that incident hadn't even been ordered directly by Orochimaru. Mizuki had acted on his own, hoping to earn credit.
He had miscalculated.
He couldn't even defeat Naruto.
Beaten by his own student.
Back in the video, Orochimaru frowned.
"Tsunade, I truly meant to revive those two. And I agreed not to destroy Konoha. Why refuse?"
He had already conceded far more than he ever did.
Based on his understanding of Tsunade, she had no reason to reject him.
This didn't fit his expectations.
Tsunade's face tightened with pain.
"Orochimaru, I know you're lying about not attacking the village. I know that… and yet…"
Her voice trembled.
"Even if it was only once. Just once… I wanted to see them again. Even once. I wanted to touch them. Even once. I wanted to see them smile."
Tears threatened her composure.
"But when I felt like I could truly see Nawaki and Dan again… when it felt real… I realized I was a hopeless idiot. Just thinking of them made me reckless. I loved them. And because I loved them…"