While watching Naruto, Uchiha Yuan once thought about a question: Since the nine tailed beasts were originally split from the Ten-Tails, and sealing them back into the Ten-Tails' body—the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path—would revive the Ten-Tails, did that mean that with just a part of the Ten-Tails' body and some chakra from other tailed beasts, one could create a mini-Ten-Tails?
After all, in the original story, the Ten-Tails wasn't revived with complete Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails chakra. Only a horn from the Eight-Tails and chakra from the Gold and Silver Brothers who had ingested Nine-Tails flesh were used.
So in theory, as long as there's a suitable vessel, it should be possible to create a small version of the Ten-Tails.
In the future, that vessel was likely to be Naruto.
However, judging from the newly born tailed beast inside Naruto, that experiment likely failed. This tailed beast still resembled the Nine-Tails in appearance—just a Nine-Tails infused with other tailed beasts' chakra.
So using Naruto as the vessel likely wouldn't work. It would be more successful to use a portion of the Demonic Statue's body as a vessel.
As Uchiha Yuan pondered this, Minato and his team were discussing the next course of action. Naruto and Yamato would certainly have to return to the future, and to do that, Mukade had to be defeated.
Aside from Uchiha Yuan, no one else knew Mukade's true identity in Rōran. But since Yuan couldn't explain where he got his intel, he had to let things unfold according to the original storyline.
Minato proposed that Naruto protect the Queen of Rōran while the others searched for Mukade.
Just like in the original story, Naruto protected Sara from puppet soldiers and learned from her that An Lushan was their true target—Mukade.
(An Lushan is an alias or fake identity and Mukade is his real name)
Sara, having witnessed all the events unfold, saw through An Lushan's facade and decided to help Naruto defeat him.
Meanwhile, Minato, with help from Shibi and Uchiha Yuan, quickly located An Lushan. By the time they arrived, Naruto was already locked in battle with him.
An Lushan had used the power of the Dragon Vein to create a massive puppet with a centipede-like tail and was hiding inside it, controlling it from within.
Naruto's fighting style was no different from in the original story—overwhelming force backed by massive chakra reserves. The only difference was that he had clearly become much more skilled in ninjutsu and wasn't just "spinning Rasengans" anymore.
But his attacks weren't very effective.
Because An Lushan had absorbed the Dragon Vein's power, the puppet could continuously regenerate and wasn't afraid of attrition at all.
Seeing Naruto's attacks fail, Minato joined the battle.
Shibi also wanted to help, but Uchiha Yuan stopped him. "Sensei, this is a father-and-son battle. We're outsiders—it's best we don't interfere," Yuan said.
Shibi was momentarily stunned, then nodded and held back from directly attacking the centipede. Instead, he and Yuan focused on restricting its movements.
With Minato's assistance, Naruto could unleash his attacks more freely. An Lushan's puppet, being too large, lacked agility.
Naruto once again drew on the power of the tailed beast inside him, entering the three-tailed chakra cloak state.
In this state, every one of his punches was devastating. The puppet was soon smashed to pieces, exposing An Lushan's true body.
Then, Naruto and Minato jointly used the Rasen Tengan (Tailed Beast Planetary Rasengan) from the original storyline.
At the same time, Sara successfully shut down the Dragon Vein, stripping An Lushan of his regenerative power.
Their combined Rasen Tengan struck An Lushan's real body directly.
And so, with Minato's help, Naruto defeated An Lushan.
Clinging to life and unwilling to accept defeat, An Lushan used the last of his strength to dive into the Dragon Vein with his puppet.
Just like in the original story, the Dragon Vein went berserk, forcing Minato to immediately seal it.
This also meant it was time to say goodbye.
Naruto's gaze lingered on Minato.
Sensing Naruto's look, Minato smiled warmly and embedded his Flying Thunder God kunai into the Dragon Vein's altar, then activated the sealing technique.
As the Dragon Vein was sealed, white light began to radiate from Naruto and Yamato's bodies—they were about to return to their proper time.
Yamato took the chance to exact revenge on Kakashi for past bullying, smacking him hard on the head.
"Why'd you hit me?" Kakashi lifted his lifeless eyes and asked.
"You always bullied me. I finally got my payback," Yamato said, looking completely vindicated.
Meanwhile, Minato prepared the memory-sealing technique. Uchiha Yuan didn't react—he already knew this would happen and had preemptively recorded the entire incident using a genjutsu stored in his Sharingan.
As long as he activated the eye, everything that had just happened would replay in his mind.
Naruto's glow grew ever brighter. Just as he was about to say something heartfelt to Minato, Minato interrupted him.
"To have a son like you... is my greatest pride. We'll have time to talk properly someday. Goodbye."
With that, Minato activated the seal, and Naruto and Yamato disappeared.
After their departure, the others were left in a daze.
Minato's technique had erased all memories related to Rōran. Their memories ended at the moment they first entered the city with Uchiha Yuan, Shibi, and Kakashi.
The group looked around, baffled.
Uchiha Yuan glanced at the Flying Thunder God seal and immediately understood what had happened.
Minato also saw the seal and deduced that the mission had been completed, though something must've happened that required memory sealing.
Minato explained the situation and apologized to the others for sealing their memories.
Since none of them remembered anything, they naturally didn't mind.
And so, the mission in Rōran came to a smooth conclusion. Minato used the Flying Thunder God Technique to take everyone away.
No one noticed that Uchiha Yuan had secretly left behind a shadow clone in Rōran.
He did this to study the Dragon Vein's power. Although Minato had sealed it, some puppets still retained traces of that power inside them due to the recent sealing.
Uchiha Yuan didn't want anyone to know about this, so he left the clone in secret.
(To Be Continued...)