"Unusual chakra fluctuations have recently appeared near Roulan, and we've lost contact with the Queen there. We suspect something happened, so your squad is being dispatched to gather intelligence and determine the situation."
"Understood!" Minato Namikaze nodded, accepting the scroll.
Simply put, this mission is just to investigate what's happening in Roulan, not to help either faction. That's why in the original timeline, Minato stuck strictly to investigating and showed no interest in anything else. If Naruto hadn't kept making a mess of things, Minato probably wouldn't have stepped in to help the Queen handle the rebellion, Ren thought to himself.
Leaving the Hokage's office, the four agreed to meet at Konoha's main gates in an hour, returning to their quarters to pack their gear for the journey to Roulan.
Upon returning home and explaining the deployment to his two beautiful wives, the ladies immediately began prepping his travel gear. Before long, a massive fabric pack was hoisted before Ren.
"Uh, ladies, I'm deploying for a mission, not embarking on a vacation..."
"Is there a difference?" Hikari asked, looking at Ren with wide, innocent eyes.
Konan nodded in agreement. "With your strength, Hubby, who is left in this world for you to fear? You call it a deployment, but honestly, you might just bring back another addition to the household by the time you return~"
Ren immediately held up his hands to swear. "Rest assured, my lovely wives! I am absolutely not the type of scum who falls for every woman he sees! I am a responsible man!"
"Alright, alright, we know you're a responsible man. We're just reminding you: do not bring strange women back to our home!" Hikari sighed playfully.
Shortly after, Ren's squad converged at the gates. After signing the exit log with the guards, the four leaped across the perimeter, charting a vector toward Roulan.
"Roulan is situated within the Land of Wind... are we really heading back to that barren desert nation?" Nawaki grimaced. Compared to the prosperous and fertile Land of Fire, the Land of Wind was an incredibly harsh environment.
"It's just a quick deployment, not a permanent station," Ren noted casually. "By the way, I've heard rumors that Roulan sits atop a Dragon Vein possessing infinite chakra. I wonder if it's true?"
"Infinite chakra? I wonder how it scales compared to mine?" Nawaki asked, adjusting his stance mid-stride.
"It probably doesn't outclass your capacity, Nawaki. After all, your reserves are nearly double mine at this point," Minato chuckled.
Leaping through the canopy behind them, Kakashi watched the three older shinobi, his mind struggling to process their conversation. Human chakra... how can it ever be linked to the concept of 'infinite'? I'll keep observing before drawing a conclusion!
As they darted through the forest, Ren's mind drifted to Naruto. He wondered what kind of expression he should make when he ran into him. Years ago when I crossed paths with Sasuke, I missed the opportunity to harvest a blood sample. I definitely won't let it slip past this time!
Then again, focusing strictly on medical research has lost a lot of its initial strategic utility. If I truly want to awaken the Rinnegan or the Tenseigan, I could just take a trip to the Moon and extract a clean sample from the Otsutsuki descendants.
If that route proved tedious, he could always borrow a fraction of chakra from the nine Tailed Beasts, using their raw energy to catalyze Otsutsuki cellular cultures. Ren felt that such an experiment would yield phenomenal results! But true to Hikari's words, his current baseline strength was more than enough to raze the entire shinobi world; awakening the Rinnegan wouldn't change his absolute dominance. Consider it a collector's hobby then~
Following two and a half days of travel, the squad finally arrived at the perimeter of Roulan at a leisurely pace.
Standing amid the desert sands, Kakashi looked completely deadpan. A journey that should have taken a single day was dragged out until now because these two kept slacking off... His gaze drifted over Ren and Nawaki, cursing them thoroughly in his mind. In his original tactical plan, they should have been charting a return vector by now, rather than just arriving.
"Let's move. Time to see what's inside," Ren led the way, and the group marched openly into the city.
Meanwhile, deep within the royal palace of Roulan.
"Your Majesty! Those outsiders are hidden shinobi from Konoha! They have undoubtedly infiltrated our borders to seize the absolute power of the Dragon Vein!" the obese Anrokuzan declared, bowing deeply before Sara, who sat upon the throne. Though addressing her as Queen, his eyes held zero reverence, filled instead with complete disdain.
Queen Sara, entirely oblivious to Anrokuzan's treacherous intent, merely nodded. She turned to the assembly, stating, "Anrokuzan will handle all administrative and security arrangements. If the automated foundries require more energy, I will expand the seal on the Dragon Vein further."
"Your Majesty's wisdom is boundless!" Anrokuzan immediately delivered a oily compliment. As long as Sara continued to feed him the Dragon Vein's chakra, he would gladly grovel at her feet!
Once the assembly dismissed, Sara shed her heavy royal regalia. Finding herself restless, she walked down to the subterranean holding cells where Naruto was being detained.
"Hey! Let me out of here right now, or I'm busting this place wide open!" Naruto roared, slamming his fists against the reinforced bars of his cell.
As the son of the Fourth Hokage and the second disciple of Ren Kurogane—the wealthiest man in the shinobi world—Naruto was typically easygoing, but that didn't mean he would tolerate being locked up like a common criminal! Had it not been for his high moral discipline, he would have single-handedly leveled this minor nation the moment those guards put hands on him!
Sensing someone approaching, Naruto shouted, "Hey! You over there! You're the Queen of this place, right? Order your lackeys to release me instantly, or don't blame me for getting rough!"
Sara, already stressed by the political tension, found her temper flaring at his shouting. "Silence, you interloper! Sparing your life was an act of absolute royal mercy, so stop barking empty threats inside my palace!" she snapped, glaring at him.
"An interloper?! Your nation specifically filed an official request for Konoha shinobi to intervene! How does that make me an invader?!"
"What? I never authorized any request to Konoha! Stop spreading blatant lies!"
Realizing the woman was entirely unreasonable, Naruto lost all patience for dialogue. He snapped a single hand seal, his physical form dissolving into a dark blur that vanished entirely from Sara's vision.
"What?!" Sara's face went pale.
Only now did she remember that she was dealing with a shinobi—and an elite one from Konoha at that. She backed against the stone wall, her eyes darting frantically across the cell as sheer panic set in.
Suspended upside down from the ceiling directly above her, Naruto observed her behavior. Is this skittish girl really the legendary, decisive Queen of Roulan? She seems a bit of a blockhead...
A few days prior, he had received a direct order from his father, the Fourth Hokage, to reinforce an active pursuit mission tracking a rogue Sunagakure ninja named Mukade. Naruto had accepted the high-priority deployment alongside his teammates, Sasuke and Sakura, with Shikamaru handling tactical strategy. It should have been a flawless execution, but Mukade had desperately overloaded the Dragon Vein's seal, releasing a massive tempest of chakra that hurled Naruto over twenty years into the past.
The first person he had laid eyes on upon waking up was this girl, Sara. As for Sasuke and Sakura, he hadn't established contact yet, though he estimated they had also breached the temporal barrier, albeit at unknown landing vectors.
While Naruto and Sara were having their clash of wits, Ren's squad breached the inner rings of Roulan.
Looking at the towering towers and massive pipes that gave the city an advanced mechanical aesthetic, Nawaki blinked in shock. "Holy crap! This place looks incredibly futuristic!"
Ren and Minato ignored his marveling. Minato asked with a slight frown, "Ren, is it wise for us to march through the main thoroughfare so openly? Lord Hokage's mandate specified a stealth investigation into the anomalies."
"It's fine. If their security forces try to make an issue out of it, we can just dismantle the nation while we're here," Ren noted nonchalantly.
Minato paused, considering the statement. Fair point.
Aside from Ren, who rarely deployed his full capabilities anymore, Minato and Nawaki were legendary powerhouses within Konoha's ranks. Based on their recorded achievements, the international bingo books already scaled their individual threat levels directly alongside the Legendary Sannin. And that was just based on their suppressed parameters; if pushed to execute a total deployment, the two of them could systematically dismantle the other four Great Nations over the course of an afternoon.
Because of Minato's Flying Raijin, travel time didn't drain their operational window. The fact that Hiruzen Sarutobi had mobilized all three of them toward Roulan suggested an underlying political clause—if the local regime refused to cooperate, total annexation was on the table.
Suddenly, the three older shinobi halted, their gazes shifting simultaneously toward a dark alcove along the corridor.
"Who's lurking in the shadows?" Ren demanded. The chakra signature lingering in the alcove felt strangely familiar, as if from a lifetime ago. Given how distant the memory felt, it had to date back to his earliest days after transmigration.
Realizing her concealment array had been entirely bypassed, the figure stepped into the light. A woman clad in form-fitting combat gear emerged. Though she wore an Anbu mask, her deep green hair tied in topknots and the twin orange bangs framing her face instantly gave away her identity.
"I managed to establish a perimeter vector ahead of you, yet you still pinpointed my coordinates instantly. As expected of the apex icons of Konoha's newest generation," Pakura of Sunagakure said coldly.
Ren was thoroughly surprised to run into Pakura here. A bright smile crossed his face as he waved. "Hey, look, it's the lovely kunoichi from Suna! Remember me? We traded blows on the front lines back during the war!"
Pakura's tone remained clinical. "Of course I remember. Ren Kurogane: Triple-S Class threat index, Konoha's Forbidden Jutsu Grandmaster. The dangerous monster who systematically executed Lady Chiyo using forbidden techniques at the age of eleven."
"Oh, wow I didn't expect you to keep such a detailed record of me" Ren scratched the back of his head, chuckling with feigned embarrassment.
Pakura's expression soured behind her mask. How could I ever forget you... you absolute bastard!During the war, Ren had buried her alive under a massive field of explosive tags. For the longest time, she couldn't comprehend his tactical intent, until she eventually rose to command her own squads years later. It finally clicked.
Ren hadn't been trying to eliminate her; he had been saving her life. Had he not staged her premature death and burial, an elite Scorch Style user of her caliber would have been thoroughly ground to dust by the meat-grinder of the front lines. Consequently, Pakura's psychological investment in Ren was incredibly complex.
Gving a sharp glare to the daydreaming Ren, Pakura activated a Body Flicker and vanished from the corridor. Suna command had recently detected unstable data streams regarding Roulan, which is why they had sent her to run a reconnaissance loop. She had intended to keep her footprint minimal, but running into Konoha's top assets—and specifically the man who had occupied her thoughts for years—meant she couldn't just turn a blind eye. Even if she had to shadow them from a distance, she was going to verify their operational intent!
Watching her depart, Ren touched his cheek, turning to his comrades with a grin. "Did she just run away because she got flustered looking at my handsome face? Man, my charm is truly a strategic hazard."
Minato's lip twitched as he thought: Hikari, Konan... it looks like Ren is casting his net again...
Nawaki, no longer the dense brat of his youth, tracked Pakura's residual signature fading into the background. Still lurking around? Keep it up, and you're going to end up a citizen of Konoha...
As the two were mental-commentating, a violet fissure rent the space directly above them. Two figures fell out of the dimensional rift, tumbling toward the floor tiles.
"On guard!" Kakashi barked instantly, his systems jumping to maximum alert. He drew his short blade, dropping into a tight combat stance.
Ren observed the two figures pushing themselves off the floor—one black-haired boy, and one... pink-haired girl. Did future Sakura still end up in a squad with Sasuke? Ren wondered, slightly puzzled. He couldn't comprehend what kind of structural shift in the future would lead to Sakura being assigned to a cell alongside Sasuke and Naruto. A generational prodigy like Naruto stacked with an elite bloodline legacy like Sasuke, rounded out by a textbook-perfect civilian student? Konoha's command wouldn't balance a cell that poorly!
Sasuke and Sakura brushed the dust off their clothes. Looking up at the three imposing figures blocking the corridor, Sasuke rubbed the back of his neck in bewilderment. "Lord Fourth? Uncle Nawaki? Uncle Ren? What are you guys doing in Roulan?"
Hearing his terminology, Minato's keen intellect immediately deducted the parameters of the event. "You've traversed a temporal distortion from the future, haven't you? The current chronological anchor is Konoha Year 42; this period is likely vastly removed from your native timeline," Minato explained with a warm smile.
Sasuke's brow furrowed. "Year 42? Meaning every single syllable we utter right now has the potential to alter the future timeline?"
Minato nodded in affirmation, while Ren shook his head dismissively.
"Don't be silly, kid," Ren explained smoothly. "Since you have already successfully traveled from the future to the past, your physical presence in this sector proves that your arrival is already an integrated component of established history. No matter what actions you execute in this era, to the future, it is simply history playing out. At our current baseline dimensional level, altering history is an absolute impossibility."
"Uh... right," Sasuke and Sakura nodded blankly. Though the advanced spatial-temporal mechanics flew over their heads, the absolute certainty in his voice made it sound incredibly profound.
Minato looked intrigued, stepping forward to ask, "Then what tier of intervention would actually constitute altering history?"
"Explaining the exact dimensional vectors is tedious, but I can give you a basic model," Ren said, tilting his head arrogantly as the group watched him with rapt attention. "To put it simply, history is merely a macro-scale stream of time. Unless you possess the universal authority to physically slice and isolate that specific temporal segment from the main timeline, you aren't altering anything!"
The five of them stood there blankly: Abba-abba...
Finally, Minato broke the silence with a chuckle. "Alright, let's table the theoretical physics for later. So... young travelers from the future..."
"His name is Sasuke," Ren supplied helpfully.
Minato looked thoroughly exasperated. He had purposefully avoided asking for names to keep from contaminating his own memory banks with future intel!
Ren caught his friend's internal panic and laughed. "Stop worrying about ghosts, Lord Fourth Hokage~"
Minato sighed, letting go of his reservations. "Fine. Sasuke, explain the exact operational parameters that caused your squad to breach the temporal barrier and land in our era."
Sasuke blinked blankly. "Honestly... I would love to know how the hell we traveled through time myself!"