Ever since Chiba began to be called the Lord of the Shinobi World, time seemed to move differently - quietly, steadily, almost deceptively calm. Days passed, seasons turned, and the shinobi world entered an era of stable growth. The Five Great Nations, for once, weren't tearing at each other's throats, and Akatsuki - having been crushed and forced underground - didn't dare ignite another war.
Peace, however, didn't mean stillness.
It meant preparation.
On Turtle Island, the "perfect Jinchūriki" trials finally began to show results. Not everyone reached true perfection, but some breakthroughs were significant enough to alter the balance of power all over again.
Utakata, Kirigakure's Rokubi Jinchūriki, succeeded.
He became a perfect Jinchūriki - fully synchronized, fully stabilized, no longer shackled by the constant internal tug-of-war that had defined his earlier state. In truth, it was only natural. Long before Turtle Island, Utakata had trained using the "Perfect Jinchūriki cultivation scroll" Chiba had provided - knowledge originally tied to Yagura Karatachi's methods - refined further with a long, grueling regimen of emotional conditioning, the kind that forced a host to confront the beast within rather than simply suppress it.
The True Waterfall and the final trials weren't the beginning for Utakata.
They were the last step - the final push over the threshold.
Kumogakure saw a similar success.
Yugito Nii, the Two-Tails Jinchūriki, also became a perfect Jinchūriki, standing at last as a complete host rather than a fragile container. The world took notice. So did the people who truly understood what that meant: fewer weaknesses, fewer cracks, fewer moments where a single mistake could turn power into self-destruction.
And then there was Naruto.
Uzumaki Naruto didn't become a perfect Jinchūriki - at least, not yet.
But he achieved something that still made the shinobi world hold its breath.
He mastered Kyūbi Chakra Mode.
Kyūbi Chakra Mode and "Kurama Mode" were not the same thing. One remained incomplete, unstable - a state where the Kyūbi still contested chakra, where prolonged use could still spiral into lethal risk. Kurama Mode, by contrast, was the true form of a perfect host: partnership, not struggle.
Yet even an imperfect Kyūbi Chakra Mode was terrifying.
Naruto's strength surged to a level that defied common sense, rising so sharply that many couldn't reconcile the reckless boy they remembered with the blazing figure he was becoming. Compared to the original timeline, this leap came far earlier - though it came with a cost. Naruto hadn't undergone Senjutsu training at Mount Myōboku, and that missing foundation left an unmistakable gap in certain kinds of combat.
Still, the truth remained.
Naruto had stepped into the realm of top-tier shinobi.
And it wasn't sudden. It wasn't unearned. The path had been paved long before this moment.
Jiraiya had always been guiding Naruto toward the Tailed Beast's power, pushing him to understand it rather than fear it. And Minato - Namikaze Minato, even in death - had prepared the road with meticulous foresight: the Eight Trigrams Seal, the layered mechanisms embedded within it, even the chakra imprints left behind by himself and Uzumaki Kushina.
All of it existed for one purpose.
To give Naruto the chance to grasp Kyūbi chakra without being consumed by it.
Only one Jinchūriki remained behind the curve: Fū, the Seven-Tails host.
And that, too, made sense. Takigakure simply didn't possess the sealing arts, the research depth, or the institutional experience the Five Great Nations had built across generations. Worse, Fū was still young - about Naruto's age - and she lacked a mentor like Jiraiya who could guide her through the ugliest parts of mastering a beast's power.
In the end, the state of the shinobi world became clear.
Aside from the Tailed Beasts Akatsuki had already captured and extracted - Ichibi (One-Tail), Yonbi (Four-Tails), and Gobi (Five-Tails) - the remaining hosts had largely achieved what once seemed impossible:
Yugito Nii, the Two-Tails Jinchūriki
The Three-Tails Jinchūriki, Miru
Utakata, the Rokubi Jinchūriki
Killer B, the Eight-Tails Jinchūriki
All became perfect Jinchūriki.
Naruto, the Kyūbi Jinchūriki, mastered Kyūbi Chakra Mode.
Only Fū lagged slightly behind.
After Naruto gained Kyūbi Chakra Mode, Jiraiya took him traveling again - wandering the shinobi world, continuing his training, sharpening him through experience rather than comfort. The one-year agreement Jiraiya once had with Chiba had already been extended into three years.
There was still time to make Naruto stronger.
Chiba, naturally, refused to fall behind.
After returning to Kirigakure, he didn't only manage politics and expand the village's economy and military strength - he placed enormous emphasis on the education and cultivation of the next generation.
And among those, one name mattered most.
Uchiha Sasuke.
For the first time, Chiba finally administered a diluted dose of Hashirama's cells to Sasuke.
Before this, Chiba had been cautious - careful in a way few would understand. The Uchiha were an outsider clan within Kirigakure, and Chiba understood the Uchiha temperament better than almost anyone alive. The old saying wasn't a joke: if the shinobi world was ever thrown into chaos, there was always an Uchiha somewhere near the center of it.
Chiba had been testing them.
Testing Sasuke.
And there was another reason - a more dangerous one.
Sasuke was Indra's reincarnation, while Hashirama's cells came from Ashura's reincarnation. What happened when those powers mixed was impossible to predict with certainty. Chiba believed that only the fusion of reincarnations from the same generation would truly awaken the Rinnegan - what some would call the power of the Six Paths - but belief and proof were not the same thing.
Now, though, Chiba had reached a point where he could control the fallout.
He had observed Sasuke long enough. He had measured the Uchiha long enough.
And if Indra and Ashura's powers reacted violently…
Chiba could suppress it.
So it was time.
Under Chiba's direct supervision, Sasuke accepted the diluted Hashirama cells, and Chiba watched - closely, relentlessly - for every shift, every tremor, every sign that the experiment might become a disaster.
It didn't take long.
Sasuke changed.
Not subtly. Not gradually.
It was like watching a blade being reforged in real time.
First, his Mangekyō Sharingan awakened at last.
Just like before - Amaterasu, and Kagutsuchi.
But because Hashirama's cells had fused into him, Sasuke didn't suffer the rapid decline his eyes once would have. Where the original path led to near-blindness after only a few uses, this Sasuke could wield his Mangekyō far more freely - though not without limits. Chakra and ocular power still had ceilings, even if those ceilings had been raised.
He hadn't yet evolved into the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
But after this fusion… that step no longer felt distant. It felt inevitable.
And there was more.
The moment his Mangekyō awakened, Sasuke's power surged beyond expectation. Hashirama's cells didn't merely stabilize him - they amplified him. Beyond Amaterasu and Kagutsuchi, he awakened an even greater force at once:
Susanoo.
The skeletal pressure of it alone was enough to make the air feel heavy, as if the world itself recognized something dangerous had just opened its eyes.
Sasuke's gratitude toward Chiba was overwhelming.
From that moment on, he formally acknowledged Chiba as his master - Chiba's first official disciple.
A mirrored bond, reflecting Naruto and Jiraiya.
Two chosen students. Two paths. Two destinies running toward each other like blades drawn in the dark.
The "Valley of the End" confrontation between Naruto and Sasuke - the one bound by fate - was now only two years away.
And Chiba decided that, in those two years, he would draw Sasuke's potential out to its absolute limit.
Through all of this - through Chiba's constant guidance and careful protection - Uchiha Mikoto's feelings toward him deepened.
It began as admiration. Then gratitude. Then something neither of them named, not at first.
She invited him to eat at her home more and more often. Sometimes, she even asked him to stay the night, as if it were only practical, as if there were nothing tender in the request at all. Over time, a quiet ambiguity took shape between them - soft, unspoken, but impossible to completely ignore.
Sasuke was no longer the naive boy he once was.
Yet he didn't resist it.
If anything, he treated it as natural, even inevitable.
In Sasuke's heart, only two goals truly mattered.
One: defeat Uzumaki Naruto at the Valley of the End.
And two: personally kill the two executioners who had destroyed his home, shattered his family, and driven the Uchiha toward annihilation.
Uchiha Itachi…
And the masked man who called himself Uchiha Madara.
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