Nagato's pale eyes narrowed as he pressed his hands together. Behind him, the colossal Gedō Mazō loomed—its monstrous silhouette restless, its cracked body trembling as if impatient to devour. The statue's hollow sockets glowed faintly with malevolence, and a guttural rumble shook the chamber.
Nagato ignored the tremor in his body and focused on the Jinchūriki sprawled before him. The Eight-Tails' host, Killer B, lay still, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths after the grueling battle. Konan stood at Nagato's side, her wary gaze shifting between her companion and the abomination behind him.
"Kyūin! … Genryū Kyū Fūjin," Nagato intoned, his voice hoarse.
The Phantom Dragon Nine Seals emerged—chained specters of dark chakra, like serpents of fire and shadow, coiling forth from the Gedō Mazō's mouth. The spectral dragons roared as they descended upon the unconscious B, wrapping around him with suffocating force.
Nagato coughed violently, blood spilling from his lips. His legs quivered, but he forced himself upright.
"Nagato!" Konan's voice cracked with alarm as she stepped closer. "You're straining too much—"
"I'll endure it," he rasped, wiping his mouth with a trembling hand. His emaciated face twisted in pain, but his Rinnegann glowed with stubborn will. "Stand back, Konan. I must finish this."
The chains of chakra dug deeper, wrenching out fragments of Gyūki's essence. One by one, tendrils of the Eight-Tails' chakra were ripped from B's body, pulled into the maw of the Gedō Mazō. One of its closed eyes began to creak open, light flickering ominously within.
But then—
With a puff of smoke and a sharp bang, the body of Killer B dissolved into nothing but a single writhing octopus tentacle.
The dragons seized only empty flesh. The eye of the Gedō Mazō stopped halfway, remaining only a fraction open.
Nagato's breath hitched. Konan's eyes widened.
"…a substitution," she murmured.
Nagato's face darkened. "A clone. He deceived us with that tentacle… It seems Uchiha Sasuke failed in his task."
Konan's lips pressed into a thin line. "What now?"
Nagato exhaled slowly, suppressing his fury. "We report this to Tobi. This failure lies in his hands. More importantly, we must track down the Seven-Tails' Jinchūriki. The sequence of sealing cannot be ignored again. Without it, the backlash nearly tore me apart." His chest tightened as he recalled the searing pain of the failed extraction. "Had it been the full Eight-Tails instead of a fragment, I would not be standing here."
Konan gave a small nod, her expression unreadable. "Then this matter is for Tobi to correct."
Her body dissolved into countless sheets of paper, scattering into the air like a flock of birds, leaving Nagato alone in the cavern. Slowly, he released the Gedō Mazō, letting its dreadful form sink back into the void. The chamber fell silent, save for the faint rasp of his uneven breathing.
Far from the machinations of Akatsuki, another story was unfolding.
After quietly leaving Konoha, Naruto had traveled swiftly toward the border of the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind. His destination: the ruins of Loulan, the ancient city said to guard the legendary Dragon Vein.
For months, he had considered this moment. The Dragon Vein was no ordinary reservoir of chakra—it was a primordial torrent of life energy, capable of warping time itself. In the original flow of history, he recalled vague knowledge of this place… but as someone who bore both reincarnated memory and a shinobi's instincts, Naruto intended to seize its power for himself.
The journey was long, but with his sharpened speed and mastery of chakra control, he reached Loulan within hours.
What greeted him was a wasteland of ruins. Towering structures—unlike anything else in the shinobi world—rose broken and hollow, their stonework crumbling, their spires piercing the sky like the skeletons of a forgotten age. The city had once been a marvel of civilization, far surpassing the villages of his own time.
Naruto slowed his pace, eyes narrowing at the silence. "So this is Loulan… a graveyard of its own greatness."
Yet his purpose remained clear. Beneath this dead city, sealed deep underground, pulsed the heartbeat of the Dragon Vein.
He closed his eyes and extended his senses. A moment later, he felt it—a massive surge of chakra radiating from beneath the earth. Even through layers of rock and sealing scripts, the energy resonated like thunder, far greater than any tailed beast he had encountered.
Naruto's lips curved into a grin. "Found you."
He descended through the ruins until he reached a cavern glowing with ethereal light. At its heart, a massive seal burned upon the ground: a Bagua Seal, woven from the interlocking patterns of twin Four Symbols Seals. Streams of violet chakra pulsed against the seal, straining for release.
Naruto crouched low, studying the formula with careful eyes. "A clever weave… but flawed. The Four Symbols I know well enough. The Bagua Seal—Father's art. I can unravel this."
Weaving hand signs, he whispered, "Double Reverse Four Symbols Seal."
His chakra surged into the pattern. The seal cracked, light shattering in waves.
BOOM!
The ground quaked violently. All across Loulan, half-ruined towers collapsed as the earth roared. A shockwave tore through the city, scattering dust into the heavens. The Dragon Vein thrashed against its bonds, its energy erupting in waves that threatened to consume everything.
Naruto staggered but pressed on, forcing his will into the seal. Sweat beaded his brow as he opened the spiral mark upon his stomach—the same Bagua Seal that bound Kurama within him. Now, it has become the vessel for the Dragon Vein's energy.
With a thunderous roar, streams of violet chakra were sucked into his body, spiraling inward. His veins bulged with raw power, his body trembling under the torrent.
"Ghh—too much… but I won't stop now!"
The Dragon Vein screamed, its voice a resonant howl that seemed to shake not only the city, but the very fabric of space. Its chakra resisted, flaring brighter, burning against Naruto's flesh.
And then—
A burst of blinding light engulfed him. His body froze in place, as if time itself had stopped.
"W-what—?!" His thoughts were cut short. His limbs would not obey. His consciousness dissolved into the light.
When Naruto opened his eyes again, he was on his knees, panting heavily. The cavern was gone. The ruins were gone.
Around him stretched a vast green land, forests thick and untouched by war. The air was alive with vitality, the scent of earth and rain fresh as if the world itself were young.
"What the—" Naruto blinked rapidly. His seal throbbed faintly; only a fraction of the Dragon Vein's chakra had been absorbed before the process was interrupted. He clenched his fists. "Did it… Send me through time?"
He stumbled outside, marking the spot with a kunai etched with his Flying Thunder God formula before venturing farther. Better to secure a path back, if it were even possible.
Hours later, after trekking to a nearby village, Naruto attempted to gather information. He approached a villager and asked bluntly:
"Where is Konoha? Who is Hokage right now?"
The man gave him a blank stare. "Konoha? Hokage? I've never heard of such things. Stranger, you speak nonsense."
Naruto's stomach dropped. His mind raced. No Konoha. No Hokage. Then… how far back…?
He pressed again, changing his question. "What about the Uchiha? Or the Senju?"
The villager frowned, impatient. "I've never heard of those names either. But if you're asking about powerful ones, then you must mean Lord Asura and Lord Indra of the Ninja Sect. Their battle shakes even distant lands."
Naruto froze. His heart hammered.
Asura… Indra…?
The sons of the Sage of Six Paths. Ancestors of the Senju and Uchiha. The very origin of shinobi history.
He had been thrown thousands of years into the past.
For a long moment, Naruto simply stood there, caught between disbelief and dread. If Asura and Indra were alive, then the power in this era would be beyond anything his present world had seen. He couldn't reveal himself carelessly—not when his own connection to Kurama was weakened, and when the fate of the future still rested on him.
"Damn it," he muttered under his breath. "Of all times… why here?"
But even as anxiety pressed down, another emotion stirred within him: curiosity. To witness the true beginning of shinobi… to see the ancestors with his own eyes…
Perhaps this detour held an opportunity.
For now, though, survival came first.
And so, Naruto tightened his cloak around him, hiding his forehead protector, and set his path toward the land where Asura and Indra clashed—toward the very heart of the Ninja Sect.
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