"Are you certain there are no problems?"
Chiyo watched Yuji and the monks approaching the sealing platform and spoke with worry in her voice.
"We will be fine," Yuji replied.
The current state of the Loran ruins differed from what it had been in the original story, including the traces left above ground. The Sand Village rogue ninja Mukade had not yet traveled back through time, had not yet imposed his influence on the ancient Loran Kingdom, and had not yet made whatever changes he would eventually cause. In theory, the historical record of this place had not yet been altered.
This meant the ancient Loran Kingdom they were about to visit was not necessarily the technologically advanced civilization filled with puppets that appeared in the original story.
That version of Loran had formed because Mukade had forcibly transformed it while exploiting the dragon vein's power to accelerate its development. It was not the kingdom's original state.
Mukade as a character had been born in the Sand Village. Yuji had confirmed this. But given how dramatically the Sand Village had changed from the original story, whether this person would still become a rogue ninja and become involved in the original story's events was no longer certain. His fate had already been influenced by the changes Yuji had set in motion.
There was another consideration as well. The dragon vein had originally been sealed using Minato's Flying Thunder God Technique. Mukade had absorbed the Fourth Hokage's seal, causing the dragon vein to rupture and produce a space-time current that swept everyone present into the past.
Therefore, for Yuji and the others to travel through, they also needed to combine space-time ninjutsu with sealing techniques after releasing the dragon vein, creating a sufficiently powerful current to enable the crossing.
Only one person in the entire ninja world could satisfy this requirement.
Yuji himself. His Ope Ope no Mi combined with his Sealing Jutsu capabilities could substitute for what Minato had done. No one else could accomplish this.
The reason he had brought the ninja temple's senior monks was precisely because of the sealing component.
At this moment, the dragon vein was being suppressed by the Loran queen's power. But that suppression was already showing signs of weakening and approaching a loss of control.
"Begin," Yuji instructed the monks.
The several monks positioned themselves around the eye-shaped formation on the ground and sat cross-legged. One of them produced a lute-shaped ritual instrument, which in practical terms functioned as a specialized ninja tool constructed through particular methods.
As the instrument's tones resonated through the chamber, several chains shot outward from the monk's body and coiled around the stone eye on the platform. The remaining monks joined hands and activated their techniques in unison, constructing a sealing barrier formation that enclosed both Yuji and the eye formation together.
Preparations were essentially complete.
Yuji drew a slow breath.
He then brought his hands together in a continuous sequence of seals and drove both palms down onto the closed surface of the eye formation.
As the technique's patterns spread outward across the ground from the point of contact, the eye-shaped formation that had appeared as solid and unmoving as stone slowly began to open. The entire underground space began shaking violently. Then a tremendous surge of chakra erupted from within the eye, flooding every corner of the sealed barrier space in an instant.
The chamber shook. Even with the barrier separating them, Chiyo, Shimizu, and the others standing at a distance were struck by the energy fluctuations washing outward like a gale.
The several monks were drenched in sweat, pushing their combined barrier strength to its absolute limit to hold against the dragon vein's released power. To their ordinary eyes, the inside of the barrier had become completely invisible, filled from wall to wall with pure raw energy.
With every passing second, the dragon vein's surging power increased. They could not sustain this indefinitely.
If Yuji could not re-seal the dragon vein from within the past's timeline, the situation would become genuinely dangerous.
Opening the dragon vein looked extraordinarily risky.
But Yuji knew the actual problem was manageable.
The only real challenge he needed to solve was fusing space-time ninjutsu with sealing techniques in a way that produced the same effect Minato had achieved, ensuring he could actually travel back to the past.
In the instant the dragon vein's power swallowed him entirely, his consciousness lurched with a sudden disorientation.
But the strange sensation vanished almost as quickly as it had come.
He focused his perception and looked around.
He found himself standing inside what appeared to be a tribal settlement. The buildings surrounding him were constructed from stone, simple in structure and modest in scale. On some of the architectural surfaces, markings resembling vine or root patterns had been drawn.
This was completely different from the technologically advanced ancient Loran Kingdom depicted in the original story.
This appeared to be the Loran Kingdom as it had truly existed within the actual flow of history.
The version of ancient Loran seen in the original movie had been shaped by an outsider's intervention.
The moment Yuji materialized in his Kazekage robes, the local inhabitants noticed him immediately.
These people wore distinctive clothing of a style unfamiliar to him, though looking at the garments carefully, he could see certain similarities to the nomadic people of the Land of Wind in later eras.
Yuji did not delay. He approached the inhabitants directly and made his intentions clear, expressing that he wished to meet with the Loran queen. This was also the reason he had worn his Kazekage robes. The formal appearance carried weight.
Beyond acquiring the method for controlling the dragon vein, Yuji had a second purpose in seeking out the queen. He wanted to advance his own Sealing Jutsu. The fact that the Loran queen's bloodline could suppress a chakra energy source as powerful as the dragon vein demonstrated a level of understanding regarding the suppression of energy that was worth learning from directly.
The Loran Kingdom's people found Yuji's sudden appearance surprising but did not display outright hostility. His request to meet the queen encountered no significant obstacles.
The meeting was arranged quickly, taking place within the settlement itself.
Yuji identified himself and his position, explained the threat the dragon vein posed to the Land of Wind, and requested her assistance. He received her trust in return.
Through the course of their exchanges, Yuji confirmed the hypothesis he had formed. The Loran queen's bloodline carried a natural harmony with the dragon vein, somewhat resembling Jugo's innate ability to absorb natural energy while being fundamentally different in mechanism. Her mental force allowed her to guide the dragon vein's power rather than simply absorb it.
Furthermore, her ability to sense and influence natural energy was specific to the dragon vein alone. It did not extend to all forms of natural energy, and it carried no risk of losing control.
Beyond acquiring the bloodline knowledge and learning the power cultivation methods of this lineage, Yuji made no other interventions. Everything he did at this point in time would affect the actual future. He was concerned about triggering chain reactions he could not predict, so he kept his involvement with this particular timeline to the absolute minimum necessary.
This was to prevent any disruptions from appearing in the Sand Village upon his return to his own era.
The most valuable thing this journey through time had given him was the Loran queen's bloodline genetic information. The key that could eventually allow him to control the dragon vein.
At the same moment, in the underground space beneath the Loran ruins.
Chiyo and the others had just watched the dragon vein's power appear to swallow Yuji entirely, when a second later the energy inside the barrier vanished without a trace. On the altar platform above, the stone eye that had opened slowly closed again. Yuji's figure simply reappeared, completely unharmed.
From Chiyo and the others' perspective, there was no sense of anything abrupt having occurred. It was as though Yuji had never left at all.
But the dragon vein, which had just been opened, had been immediately resealed. This clearly indicated what had happened. A temporal overlap. In the past's timeline, the dragon vein had been sealed once more. And this time, the seal had been Yuji's own technique.
Chiyo let out a long breath of relief.
In a corner of the underground chamber's wall, Black Zetsu had been watching the moment of Yuji's reappearance. It made a small sound, then quickly vanished.
"Nothing irregular. Good," Yuji said after landing, quickly scanning Chiyo and the others, comparing their current state with how things had appeared before his departure. Everything aligned precisely. He allowed himself a quiet exhale of relief.
"How did it go?"
The monks dissolved the barrier and Chiyo immediately stepped forward with the urgent question.
"It worked," Yuji said with a calm smile.
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