"What the hell is going on here?"
Uzumaki Naruto stared at the Hokage Rock, his eyes wide as saucers. The face that should have been his father's had somehow been replaced with Sakura's dad's.
"What are you idiots yelling about over there?"
All of a sudden, a familiar voice cut through the air.
Naruto and Sakura froze.
They knew that voice.
Slowly, almost stiffly, they turned their heads—and sure enough, Uchiha Sasuke was striding toward them.
"Sasuke!"
Sakura blurted out, shock written all over her face.
"Why are you in the village?" Naruto demanded, still struggling to process what he was seeing.
Sasuke frowned at them. "Why wouldn't I be? It's my village too. You're both acting like you've seen a ghost… Sakura, Menma."
"…I'm in this too?"
Watching the diary, Sasuke couldn't help but look exasperated.
If things had followed their original course, he should have already defected from the village by that point. There was no way he'd just be casually walking around Konoha like this.
"So everything's completely different from reality? Since I wasn't here in the real world, in this one I never left… I stayed?"
A faint realization flickered across his mind.
"Uzumaki Menma…"
Namikaze Minato murmured the name, something clicking into place.
In this world, everyone seemed to have an inverted counterpart—a mirror image of themselves.
And Naruto's counterpart… was this Uzumaki Menma.
He was the most drastically altered of them all—even his name had changed.
The question was… was he still Naruto at his core?
Meanwhile, Naruto had already figured out something else.
In this world, his parents were alive.
Without another word, he took off, sprinting toward home.
—
Back in the real world, beneath a blood-red moon, Uchiha Obito stood at the edge of a bridge alongside Black and White Zetsu.
From the ground below, figures began to emerge—members of the Akatsuki who had just attacked Konoha.
"Thanks to you, we managed to send him to another world," White Zetsu said, looking at them.
As the transformation jutsu faded, their true forms were revealed—each one identical, all of them White Zetsu clones.
"The experiment for Infinite Tsukuyomi… the Limited Tsukuyomi."
Obito spoke calmly. "That world is like a reflection on the surface of water. By harnessing the power of seven Tailed Beasts, we send the target into another reality—one that perfectly replicates this one."
"But that world isn't exactly the same as this one…" White Zetsu pointed out.
Obito bent down, picked up a small pebble, and flicked it into the water.
"Think of it like this. When something foreign is thrown in, it distorts the reflection."
"I see." White Zetsu nodded.
Obito straightened. "That's enough. It's time we made our next move."
"But it's strange," White Zetsu added. "You created that world, yet you can't fully control it."
"I told you already," Obito replied flatly. "This jutsu is still just an experiment. But make no mistake—I'm not giving up control."
—
At this point, everyone watching felt a chill crawl up their spines.
"No wonder those so-called Akatsuki members looked so off," Tsunade slammed her palm on the table, realization dawning instantly. "They weren't the real ones at all—just these identical impostors."
That explained why Kakuzu's severed arm had looked like some kind of slime—soft and shapeless.
They could mimic appearances, but they couldn't use the real Akatsuki members' jutsu.
"The target is still Naruto…"
Jiraiya narrowed his eyes.
He remembered the earlier scene—when Naruto had been pulled into that world, strange markings had flashed on his ankle. And before that, the fake Kakuzu, disguised as White Zetsu, had grabbed Naruto's leg.
That must have been when the seal was placed.
Then they used this so-called Limited Tsukuyomi to send him into another world.
"Infinite Tsukuyomi… Limited Tsukuyomi…"
Uchiha Itachi quietly scribbled notes on a blank sheet of paper.
Tsukuyomi was his personal technique, a genjutsu that dragged opponents into a mental world entirely under his control.
Within that space, he was absolute.
Time and space bent to his will.
But this Limited Tsukuyomi was something else entirely.
Its scale dwarfed his own technique—it covered an area as vast as the entire Hidden Leaf Village. That level of power was far beyond what his eyes could achieve.
Even if he went blind, he couldn't recreate something on that scale.
More than that, the world created by this jutsu was so complete it could almost be called real. Even Uchiha Kenji, the one who created it, couldn't fully interfere with or control it.
That alone meant it had surpassed the boundaries of ordinary genjutsu.
And yet…
This overwhelming technique was merely an experiment for something called Infinite Tsukuyomi?
What exactly was Uchiha Kenji trying to accomplish?
Just how terrifying was the true jutsu?
Seven Tailed Beasts.
That was the power sustaining this illusory world.
"Seven Tailed Beasts… Have they really gathered that many in the future?"
Jiraiya's brow furrowed deeply.
He had spent years tracking Orochimaru, and during the time Orochimaru had been part of Akatsuki, Jiraiya had uncovered quite a bit of information about them.
He knew their goal was to collect the Tailed Beasts.
Even Itachi had made it clear—he had come for the Nine-Tails.
But hearing that they had already gathered seven…
Jiraiya sucked in a sharp breath.
There were only nine Tailed Beasts in total.
With Naruto holding one, that meant there was only one left unaccounted for.
Had things really reached such a dire stage?
Akatsuki was already a terrifying organization, filled with powerful and dangerous individuals.
Now, with seven Tailed Beasts under their control…
Who could possibly stop them?
That single piece of information revealed far more than it seemed.
In the future, some Akatsuki members must have been eliminated—like Kakuzu and Hidan, whose deaths they already knew of.
But at the same time, Akatsuki had steadily succeeded in capturing the Tailed Beasts.
Only two remained.
"Kekkei Genkai, secret techniques, the gathering of so many powers… and a desire to dominate the entire shinobi world. Their ambition couldn't be more obvious."
Before Jiraiya could think further, the scene shifted again.
Obito, in his intangible form, entered that world and came face-to-face with a masked boy—Uzumaki Menma.
"For someone who's basically a ghost, you've got quite a strong sense of self," Menma said coldly. "Who are you?"
"Don't worry about that," Obito replied. "I can lend you some power."
They stood at a distance, facing each other.
And in that moment, everyone watching the diary stiffened.
Because that masked boy's voice—
It sounded almost identical to Naruto's.
Combined with the title of the video and Sasuke's earlier way of addressing Naruto in this world, the truth became impossible to ignore.
Uzumaki Menma.
Naruto's counterpart in this world.
"Trying to take control of the entire shinobi world? This version of Naruto—no, Menma… he's gone completely off the rails."
Minato's expression grew grave.
In a way, Menma could be considered his son too.
But as Naruto's mirror opposite, he was consumed by ambition, ready to plunge the entire world into war.
Somewhere along the way, that child had clearly gone astray.
What struck Minato even harder was the contrast.
Menma, who had grown up with both parents, had taken a dark path.
Naruto, who had grown up alone, had fought through everything and become someone strong and upright.
It left him with a complicated, almost indescribable feeling.
—
In the video, Naruto arrived at the Hokage's office early the next morning and met the Fifth Hokage of this world—Tsunade.
"…Wow. That's really different."
Jiraiya couldn't help but mutter.
If the Tsunade in their world was… generously proportioned, then the one in this illusion looked completely flat.
It reminded him of what she had been like as a kid.
"…Seriously?"
Tsunade crossed her arms, visibly annoyed as she watched her alternate self.
Did it really have to be that obvious?
Meanwhile, the Fifth Hokage in the video was explaining the situation to Naruto.
"You've probably heard about the masked man who's been appearing this year, collecting rare jutsu and Kekkei Genkai."
"The masked man?"
Naruto frowned in confusion.
Beside him, Shizune—wearing heavy makeup and holding a small black pig—added, "He's an internationally wanted S-rank criminal. No one expected him to target the Tailed Beasts."
"Tailed Beasts… and a mask… Sakura, could it be…"
Naruto turned to her, a thought forming.
"That's right," Sakura nodded. "This world doesn't have Uchiha Madara, but just like you're Menma here, he might exist under a different identity."
Then Naruto heard something that hit him like a punch to the gut.
In this world, Jiraiya had gone to investigate the masked man…
And never came back.
Naruto's expression faltered, pain flickering across his face.
"So even in this world… I still died at the hands of my student, huh."
Jiraiya let out a self-deprecating chuckle.
In this version of events, he didn't even get a proper appearance—he was already a legend, a name from the past.
The only difference was who had killed him.
Not Nagato this time.
But another student—Naruto's own mirror counterpart.
Was that fate?
No wonder Kaede Kitahara had joked about the Hokage lineage having a tradition of killing their masters.
It really did feel like a tradition at this point.