Reaching Kage Level at sixteen or seventeen was already enough to shake the entire shinobi world, let alone ascending to Six Paths Level—a realm no one had ever attained before.
So that was the reason?
Because of that so-called Otsutsuki Indra inside him, he was able to keep breaking past his limits?
Those ancient beings, passed down through countless generations, reincarnating over and over, seizing one host after another…
And in this era, their vessels were Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke?
This was what it meant to feel a bone-deep chill.
Before he even realized it, cold sweat had soaked through Uchiha Itachi's back.
Anything involving Uchiha Sasuke always unsettled him. Concern clouded judgment—there was no avoiding it.
Then suddenly, another thought struck him.
Uzumaki Naruto's son—Uzumaki Boruto.
Even at a young age, Boruto had reached Super Kage Level, perhaps even Six Paths Level. And what had he become in the end?
Kaede Kitahara's diary referred to him as Otsutsuki Boruto.
That meant he had been possessed.
It wasn't enough to take over the father—they had taken the son as well.
Everything lined up.
"Uzumaki Menma? Who even is that? I've never heard of him."
Namikaze Minato stared at the diary, completely at a loss.
He had seen the video about Tsukuyomi and understood the concept, but creating an entire world through it?
That defied all logic.
"Otsutsuki Asura… influencing Naruto's personality?"
Minato frowned, a sense of unease creeping in.
According to the diary, the Otsutsuki were extraterrestrial beings aiming to invade the shinobi world.
So Otsutsuki Asura was hiding somewhere within it?
And influencing Naruto?
Questions piled up in his mind, one after another.
At the same time, guilt gnawed at him.
Naruto had grown up as an orphan.
[Uzumaki Naruto vs. Uzumaki Menma—who's the real one?]
As confusion lingered in everyone's minds, another video appeared in the diary. They quickly opened it.
The opening scene was familiar—the night of the Nine-Tails' attack, with the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, sealing the beast.
Then the scene shifted.
And what followed made everyone's hair stand on end.
The members of Akatsuki appeared—all of them.
A collective gasp rippled through the watchers.
Every single member of Akatsuki possessed Kage Level strength. Seeing them all gathered together like this was nothing short of terrifying.
Yet something felt off.
These Akatsuki members didn't seem to use any jutsu at all. Instead, they were easily repelled by a group led by Hatake Kakashi and the Konoha 12.
"That's not their real bodies."
The realization struck everyone at once.
Sure enough, later in the video, when Kakashi reported to Tsunade, he mentioned that some Akatsuki members who had already died had appeared again.
That alone was strange enough, but their displayed strength was even more suspicious.
They had been defeated far too easily by a group of young shinobi.
Everyone present had witnessed Akatsuki members in action before. Even limited encounters had been enough to show just how formidable they were.
Orochimaru had once been part of Akatsuki as well, and his strength was widely known.
There was no way these were the real ones.
After driving off Akatsuki, the group returned to the village, where they were welcomed by their families. Some parents even discussed writing recommendation letters to promote their children to jonin.
But among them, two stood out.
Haruno Sakura's parents were ordinary civilians, so she expressed a wish to have a heroic father.
And then there was Uzumaki Naruto, standing alone at the edge of the crowd.
An orphan.
There was no one to write a recommendation letter for him.
Surrounded by others who had families backing them, his isolation became painfully obvious.
"Naruto…"
Minato's lips parted slightly, guilt surging through him like a tide.
Jiraiya sighed as well.
It was clear that this point in time came after his death at the hands of the Six Paths of Pain.
Naruto didn't even have a mentor left who could write a recommendation for him.
When he finally turned to Umino Iruka for help, even Iruka refused.
At that time, Naruto wasn't even a chunin yet.
And for once, Naruto spoke honestly about what he felt.
"Your father, the Fourth Hokage, went through the same path—genin, chunin, jonin—before becoming Hokage," Iruka tried to persuade him. "He became a hero in the end."
But Naruto, for once, pushed back.
"Then he just became a face carved into stone. Rocks don't say 'welcome home.' Sometimes I wish… instead of being some hero up there, he was alive… someone who could actually say it to me."
Those words hit Minato like a blade to the heart.
Back when he had decided to seal away everyone's memories, he hadn't hesitated.
Even knowing his son's future wouldn't be easy, he had still gone through with it to preserve the timeline.
But now, hearing Naruto's complaint…
For the first time, he wavered.
Was that future really the right one?
"Naruto… I'm sorry."
Minato let out a quiet sigh.
Then the scene shifted again.
Naruto was dragged off by Sakura, who had just argued with her family, on what she called a "date."
Minato couldn't help but chuckle awkwardly. Sakura reminded him of Uzumaki Kushina—just as fiery.
But before his smile could settle, a familiar voice rang out, sending a chill down his spine.
"Long time no see, Uzumaki Naruto."
The speaker was the man Minato had once defeated—the one who had called himself Uchiha Madara.
Uchiha Kenji.
"It's you—Uchiha Madara!"
Naruto charged forward without hesitation, forming a Rasengan that passed straight through the man's body.
In the next instant, Uchiha Kenji cast a massive Tsukuyomi into the sky.
When Naruto and Sakura opened their eyes again, he was gone.
"That eye…"
Uchiha Sasuke's eyes widened.
He remembered reading in Kaede Kitahara's diary that he himself would possess that eye in the future. It looked like the Rinnegan, yet also like the Sharingan.
For now, it could only be described as a tomoe Rinnegan.
But why did Uchiha Kenji have it?
Had something changed in the future?
Beside him, Uchiha Itachi stared intently at the Tsukuyomi in the scene.
That wasn't his Tsukuyomi.
Or rather, it wasn't the version he was familiar with.
His genjutsu couldn't achieve that level of precision. Most of his mental energy had to be focused on simulating pain.
Then the scene continued.
Naruto and Sakura encountered familiar faces—Inuzuka Kiba, Hyuga Hinata, and Aburame Shino.
But something was wrong.
They looked the same, yet everything about them felt off.
Their personalities were completely reversed.
Shino, usually quiet and reserved, had become talkative.
Kiba, who loved dogs more than anything, now preferred cats and had even fallen out with Akamaru.
Hinata, who used to blush and faint after saying a few words, now spoke boldly, even threatening Sakura like a domineering leader.
"If you touch him, I'll kill you."
Everything was inverted.
Sasuke immediately recalled what Kaede Kitahara had written earlier—this was a Tsukuyomi world, completely opposite to reality.
Soon after, members of Team 10—Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Choji, and Yamanaka Ino—appeared.
They, too, were completely different.
Choji, from the Akimichi Clan, showed no interest in food and had become thin.
Shikamaru, known for his genius intellect, couldn't even handle basic math.
Ino, usually loud and aggressive like Sakura, had become gentle and soft-spoken.
"So their personalities and circumstances are completely reversed from reality?"
Minato grasped it immediately.
Even though he didn't know these teams personally, he understood the general traits of the major clans.
The Akimichi were always large, not just due to appetite but because of their clan techniques.
The Inuzuka Clan relied on ninja dogs; none of them disliked them.
The Nara Clan, renowned for their intelligence, had long served as strategists, even holding positions like Jonin Commander.
Seeing such a foolish version of Nara Shikamaru was clearly unnatural.
Especially considering how, in a previous video, Shikamaru had outmaneuvered Hidan with flawless strategy, perfectly embodying the Nara Clan's brilliance.
Then Minato noticed something else.
On the Hokage Rock, his own face as the Fourth Hokage was gone.
In its place was the face of Sakura's civilian father.
"Wait… that's completely different!"
Jiraiya stared at the altered Hokage Rock in shock, though a trace of hope flickered in his eyes.
Minato had been his prized student.
If Minato had never become the Fourth Hokage, then perhaps the tragedy that befell him wouldn't have happened.
And that meant, in this world…
His student might still be alive somewhere.