The resurrected Izuna Uchiha leapt across rooftops and utility poles, racing toward the huge eyeless monster in the distance.
At the same time, Nagato suddenly realized that his targets had disappeared, and the scenery around him had changed completely.
"Nagato!!!"
The blue-violet-haired girl saw the frenzied red-haired boy and immediately shouted.
Because of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, a large section of the walls in Young Obito's house had been destroyed, fully exposing everyone inside to Nagato's view.
"Ko...nan...?"
Konan's voice instantly snapped the rampaging Nagato back to his senses.
Then Nagato saw Yahiko lying on the ground with his head resting on Konan's lap.
"Yahiko!!"
Nagato rushed to them in two strides, his voice filled with grief. "Yahiko, he..."
"He's fine."
The girl who had been beside Konan the whole time suddenly spoke. Only then did Nagato notice the brown-haired girl, and her words left him stunned.
Konan quickly explained to Nagato, "They saved us. They stopped Hanzō's men from capturing me and prevented him and Danzō from using me as a hostage to threaten you. They're our benefactors."
Nagato's dazed expression looked a little foolishly cute, his Rinnegan wide and round.
"Then Yahiko..."
"To help you truly awaken the power of the Rinnegan, we gave you a very, very small scare." Young Obito brought Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi into his Kamui's Dimension as well.
The group walked over.
Young Kakashi touched Yahiko's chest, then lifted his hand to show Nagato.
"What your kunai pierced was the blood plasma bag we prepared."
"Huh?!"
Nagato's eyes widened. Sure enough, he saw Yahiko's chest rising and falling evenly. Clearly, he had only been placed safely into a sleeping state.
He let out a breath of relief.
The handsome red-haired boy dismissed the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, then sank to his knees as though he had just survived a disaster.
Young Obito wiped away cold sweat. "That was way too dangerous just now. Hanzō really is sinister, burying that many explosive tags right where you were standing."
At the mention of explosive tags, Young Obito looked at Konan with a somewhat complicated gaze. Konan did not understand what was so strange about it. At this time, she had no idea that in another parallel world, "Konan" had once stockpiled six hundred billion explosive tags in an attempt to kill Obito Uchiha.
"Hmph! That Danzō Shimura is just as vile!" Sasuke's voice was cold and hard. No matter which world's Danzō Shimura it was, Sasuke had a blood feud with him.
Naruto had also seen Danzō Shimura casually grab a Konoha comrade as a shield to save himself, and he was huffing with anger.
As they spoke, none of them noticed someone watching them from the shadows in the distance.
Without a doubt, that person was Izuna Uchiha, who had been revived from the Warring States Period.
When Izuna Uchiha saw the enormous eyeless monster vanish with a poof, he knew it definitely was not Hashirama Senju's Wood Release. It was more like some kind of Summoning Jutsu.
He hid inside a civilian house, observing them through a narrow crack in the slightly opened wooden door.
Ever since he arrived here, he had noticed that the nearby shops, houses, and training grounds all bore the fan pattern, the family crest of the Uchiha Clan.
So seeing two Uchiha boys here was not strange.
Only...
This place should be part of the Pure Land, right?
They had died at only twelve or thirteen.
At that thought, the eyes of Izuna Uchiha, who had died at twenty-four, darkened.
Hashirama Senju had mentioned the idea of an alliance to his brother countless times, and his brother was also inclined to accept.
But his brother was too innocent and too gentle. He was easily led along by Hashirama Senju's ideas. Once they formed an alliance, the Uchiha Clan would inevitably be suppressed by the Senju Clan and never rise again.
Besides...
He looked at the two Uchiha boys over there.
The hatred between the Uchiha Clan and the Senju Clan, built over hundreds and thousands of years, could not be resolved simply by forming an alliance.
Watching them talk with boys and girls who were not from the Uchiha Clan, Izuna thought to himself:
Only in a place like this, where everyone's soul has returned to the Pure Land, can people truly stand as equals and understand one another.
Maybe when he saw that Tobirama fellow later, he could even joke with him and share a drink.
By then, Yahiko had more or less woken up too.
After surviving this ordeal, he, Konan, and Nagato had all matured quite a bit at once.
After learning the whole story, the three of them formally expressed their gratitude to the six boys and girls.
"I really never expected you to be Minato-senpai's students! As expected of the student Jiraiya-sensei always praised!"
Yahiko sighed. "I really miss Jiraiya-sensei. Maybe this time I'll actually get the chance to meet Minato-senpai in person. I heard his performance in the Third Shinobi World War was extraordinary, and that he practically guided the course of the entire war!"
The admiration in his eyes made Minato Namikaze's son, Naruto Uzumaki, feel especially pleased.
At the same time, they could not help thinking that if Yahiko learned they had actually come from the past, the Kannabi Bridge period, and the future, the Chūnin Exams period in the mission scroll world, he would be shocked beyond belief.
Never mind Minato Namikaze's students. His son was standing right in front of them.
And if he found out that in Naruto's world, Yahiko had already died during this operation, while Nagato and Konan had carried his ideals down the wrong path with no return...
In a still more distant future, they had even killed Jiraiya-sensei, whom they respected so deeply.
Would Yahiko break down on the spot?
The six of them thought this, but none of them told Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato about something so unbelievable and so difficult to explain.
Yahiko said, "As the leader of the Akatsuki organization, I'll always welcome you to visit Amegakure. If a mission ever brings you this way, remember to come find us."
"But..." Though Konan felt reluctant, she still had to remind Yahiko at this moment.
"We're inside Obito's Kamui's Dimension right now. Outside, Danzō Shimura and Hanzō of the Salamander have probably figured things out. They won't keep fighting each other. They'll focus on us and Akatsuki instead."
Yahiko and Nagato understood that as well.
From now on, the days ahead for the Akatsuki organization would likely be extremely difficult.
Nagato lowered his head. He thought that if Yahiko had truly died this time, then he would surely have...
Suddenly, he remembered that before they set out, he had secretly met the Masked Man without telling Yahiko. Looking back now, that person had said with certainty that sooner or later, Nagato would understand. In this cursed ninja world, the day when people could truly be honest with one another and live together in peace would never come.
If it was that person...
If it was that person, perhaps he would have a way to protect Akatsuki!
Before Nagato entered this space, that one attack had killed many Konoha ANBU and Amegakure ninjas.
As long as he could truly use the Rinnegan!
"Nagato."
A hand landed on his shoulder. "Don't think about doing anything dangerous. Relax. Leave it to us, your comrades."
"Yahiko..."
"That move just now means Nagato's Rinnegan has been completely exposed," Young Kakashi reminded the three of them. "You'd better make plans ahead of time."
At the mention of this problem, Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan all looked troubled and did not know what to say for a while.
"Minato-sensei's side is really slow."
After waiting for a while, the six from Konoha grew a little bored.
The Akatsuki organization's future was still uncertain. As long as Hanzō of the Salamander and Danzō Shimura were alive, there would be no place for Akatsuki in the Land of Rain.
Naruto said, "I wonder if something happened on Dad's side. Normally, the three of them shouldn't have any problems, right?" Kakashi-sensei and Dad were both so strong, and future Obito was no pushover either.
Dad?
Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan were a little puzzled, but in the end, they concluded that one of the people carrying out the mission with Minato-senpai must be this boy's father.
Obito threw an explosive tag out of Kamui's Dimension, letting Danzō Shimura and Hanzō of the Salamander know that they were still here. That way, they would not dare retreat immediately and would have to remain on guard.
"How about we go find Minato-sensei and the others directly?" he said.
But if they did that, Danzō Shimura and Hanzō of the Salamander might leave this place, causing even more problems afterward. Once they were gone, Akatsuki might suffer even greater retaliation from both forces, and Nagato's Rinnegan might not even be safe.
Sasuke, who had been looking down in thought, suddenly turned to Young Obito. "Did we get the evidence of Danzō colluding with Hanzō of the Salamander and deploying Konoha ninjas to interfere in another country's internal affairs?"
After experiencing his older brother's life, Sasuke hated Danzō to the bone.
Calling it deep hatred was no exaggeration at all.
He even felt that he had a duty to kill Danzō Shimura from any parallel world.
Naruto, Sakura, and the others could all see this.
As his comrades, they would stop Sasuke from losing himself, but they would not stop him from taking revenge or killing a high-ranking Konoha official who constantly claimed to act for Konoha's sake, yet because of his own shortsightedness and narrow mind, kept making enemies for Konoha.
"We got all of it." Obito took out the photos from the camera and handed them to Sasuke.
"Good."
Sasuke picked out several duplicate photos taken from repeated shutter presses and handed them to Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan.
"Keep a set here as a backup. If we don't manage to deliver these photos to the Hokage in time, give them to Jiraiya."
Yahiko looked at Sasuke in surprise, taking his words "if we don't manage it in time" as a sign that the other boy was prepared to die.
He wanted to stop him, but they were ninjas, and the mission came first.
After hesitating again and again, he accepted the photos and solemnly promised, "As long as we're alive, we will definitely deliver these to Jiraiya-sensei!"
Sasuke nodded, then looked at Young Kakashi, the captain of the mission team. "Have Obito let Danzō Shimura in. I'm going to kill him here."
"What?!!"
…
Nagato died at the age of thirty-five.
I did the math. If Minato Namikaze had lived until Nagato died, he should have been forty years old. Twenty-four at death plus Naruto's sixteen years. Jiraiya went traveling after teaching Yahiko and the other two, so based on age, Minato should be their senior brother, having become Jiraiya's student earlier than Yahiko and the others.