Chapter 354: Parallel Universe, Uchiha Akira's Intrusion
Uchiha Akira nodded, his crimson gaze sweeping over the kneeling Anbu operatives.
"Withdraw," he commanded, his voice slicing through the howling desert wind. "You are no longer needed here."
The lead Anbu bowed his head in strict reverence. In a synchronized blur of motion, he and his two subordinates vanished from the spot, leaving behind only swirling dust.
In the desolate desert ruins, only Uchiha Akira remained.
The wind shrieked like a dying beast, hurling coarse sand against shattered stone pillars and crumbling walls, echoing with a mournful, hollow sound.
Akira's gaze swept across the wasteland. He took a measured step, his boots crunching over the debris as he walked unhurriedly toward the deepest sector of the ruins.
Soon, the skeletal remains of a grand palace loomed before him. Etched into the cracked stone floor was a sprawling, dizzyingly complex Sealing Jutsu formula.
"Minato Namikaze's handiwork..." Akira murmured, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Interesting."
He recognized the framework immediately: a highly modified amalgamation of the Four Symbols Seal and the Eight Trigrams Seal, carefully bound with the spatial markers of the Flying Thunder God Technique. Unraveling such a masterpiece layer by layer would demand a significant investment of time, and Akira had no intention of wasting his hours studying how to dismantle the jutsu.
Brute force was simply faster.
He raised his right hand. Pitch-black chakra surged, condensing into a perfect sphere—a Truth-Seeking Orb. With a mere thought, the dense orb stretched, elongating into a razor-sharp black rod.
Without hesitation, Akira drove the rod directly into the absolute core of the sealing matrix.
In an instant, the reaction triggered.
The dead ruins of Rōran began to shake violently. Deep beneath the earth, the suppressed, infinite chakra of the Ryūmyaku finally found an exit. It surged upward like a geyser of pure energy, spiraling frantically along the conductive surface of the black rod in Akira's grip.
A blinding pillar of purple light erupted into the heavens, violently tearing through the dull, yellow sky and painting the clouds in an eerie, unnatural luminescence.
Space warped.
Time flowed backward.
Akira did not resist as his body was instantly swallowed by the violent spatio-temporal torrent. The physical world dissolved into a maelstrom of shattered light and fragmented shadows, streaking past his vision at a speed that defied human perception.
After an unknown amount of time, the tearing sensation vanished as abruptly as it had begun.
Dazzling sunlight and the deafening roar of a massive crowd washed over him. Akira blinked, finding himself standing at the very top of a towering structure.
He looked out over the edge. The barren, wind-swept desert and crumbling ruins were gone.
In their place stood a breathtakingly prosperous and magnificent metropolis. Countless cylindrical spires pierced the sky, boasting a gorgeous, utterly unique architectural style. The streets below were packed with a sea of people. Vibrant banners fluttered in the warm breeze, and every face in the crowd was flushed with festive joy and cheer.
'Is this... Rōran of the past?' Akira mused silently, his sharp eyes taking in the sheer scale of the city.
A thunderous roar of adoration erupted from the massive central plaza below.
"Your Majesty the Queen!"
"Long live Queen Sara!"
Akira's gaze drifted downward. On a grand balcony jutting out from the tallest central tower, a young woman stood draped in magnificent, regal attire. Her striking crimson hair cascaded down her back as she smiled warmly, waving to her adoring subjects beneath her.
It was Sara, the Queen of Rōran.
The grand celebration was in full swing. Amidst the deafening cheers echoing across the plaza, Sara stepped forward from between two wooden puppets.
Just as she prepared to receive the adoration of her people, a wooden limb shot out from the shadows behind her, shoving her violently in the back.
Sara gasped, her balance shattering. She pitched forward over the railing, plummeting toward the stone plaza dozens of meters below.
"Oh no!"
A streak of bright yellow shot out from an adjacent tower almost simultaneously. Uzumaki Naruto launched himself into the open air, desperately reaching out for the falling Queen.
However, someone else was vastly superior in speed.
A flicker of movement. Akira vanished. He materialized in mid-air directly beneath the falling girl. Without a single wasted motion, he caught Sara, his arm wrapping securely around her waist.
A gentle breeze whipped past them.
Sara, who had squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of a bone-crushing impact, slowly fluttered them open. The agonizing embrace of death never came. Instead, she found herself cradled against a warm, unyielding chest, suspended safely above the plaza.
A crisp, pleasant scent filled her senses. She instinctively looked up, her breath catching in her throat. The face looking down at her was flawlessly sculpted, possessing a cold, almost demonic handsome quality that completely arrested her thoughts.
"Who... who are you?" Sara's voice trembled, betraying a chaotic mix of lingering terror and sudden, overwhelming fluster.
Akira offered no verbal reply. He simply held her, gliding smoothly through the air until they touched down in a quiet, secluded spot far from the chaotic plaza.
The moment her velvet shoes clicked against the solid pavement, the spell broke. Sara snapped out of her daze, her cheeks burning with a fierce blush as she hurriedly stepped back, struggling out of his grip.
"Th-thank you for saving my life," she stammered, frantically smoothing out the wrinkles in her extravagant dress before offering him a deep, respectful bow.
"It was nothing," Akira replied, his tone smooth and indifferent, offering her a curt nod.
"Hey! Who are you, guy?!"
A loud, brash voice shattered the quiet. Naruto dropped from the sky, landing heavily between them. He threw his arms out, shielding Sara as he glared fiercely at Akira.
Sara quickly stepped around the blonde ninja, waving her hands. "Don't misunderstand! He saved me!"
"Eh? He saved you?" Naruto froze, the aggressive posture melting into immediate awkwardness. He reached up, sheepishly scratching the back of his spiky blonde head. "Is... is that right? My bad, I thought..."
Akira observed the boy standing before him.
The face was unmistakably familiar. His disciple, Uzumaki Naruto.
Yet, looking into those bright blue eyes, Akira saw only guarded wariness and a touch of characteristic simplemindedness. There was zero recognition. The absolute loyalty and deep respect his Naruto would have displayed when facing him were completely absent.
A cold, calculating thought surfaced in Akira's mind. He decided to test the waters.
"What is your name?" he asked, his voice calm and authoritative.
Naruto blinked, surprised by the sudden question. Then, he puffed out his chest, jabbed a thumb at himself, and flashed a wide, toothy grin.
"I am Uzumaki Naruto! A Ninja from the Hidden Leaf Village!"
Just as expected.
Akira's dark eyes narrowed slightly, the depths of his gaze turning unreadable. He threw out the second test.
"Who is the current Hokage of Konoha?"
Naruto's grin faltered, replaced by a look of utter bewilderment. "Huh? You don't even know that?" The blonde boy scoffed, crossing his arms. "The Hokage of our village is, of course, Granny Tsunade, the Fifth Hokage!"
Tsunade?
Not Uchiha Akira?
The final puzzle piece clicked into place. Akira understood everything.
This was not simply a trip twenty years into the past of his own timeline. The volatile, untamed power of the Ryūmyaku had undergone an unknown deviation during the spatio-temporal jump.
It had thrown him into a parallel universe. A world where Uchiha Akira did not exist, where the Ninja World had blindly followed its original, tragic trajectory.
A... truly 'original'world.'So that's it...' Akira thought, a faint, dangerous amusement flickering in his eyes.
"Hey, what are you muttering about?" Naruto demanded, his blue eyes narrowing. His body tensed, instinctively shifting back into a combat-ready stance.
This tall, dark-haired stranger who had appeared out of nowhere to save Queen Sara radiated an aura of immense, suffocating danger from head to toe.
Akira ignored the boy's posturing entirely.
"Who exactly are you? What is your purpose in coming to Rōran?" Naruto pressed, his hand slowly, secretly creeping toward the ninja tool pouch strapped to his leg.
Just then, the air surrounding them began to ripple with unnatural spatial distortions.
A brilliant yellow flash materialized out of thin air.
Immediately following, three more figures touched down on the stone pavement, landing in perfect synchronization.
Without a single word spoken, the newcomers fanned out into a flawless, high-level battle formation, firmly shielding Naruto and the Queen behind them.
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