[Please pull the lever beside the machine to begin the draw.]
[No time limit. One chance only. Please choose carefully.]
The stiff, mechanical voice cut through the crowd as the ninja portraits on the slot machine screen began spinning faster and faster.
At first, people could still tell whether the faces belonged to someone they knew. Soon after, the speed became so extreme that no one could distinguish the images anymore.
"No time limit, huh? That's something we can really take advantage of," Kakashi said lazily as he pushed his forehead protector up, exposing his scarred left eye. The eyelid opened—and a crimson Sharingan gleamed into view.
Naruto: "As expected of Kakashi-sensei!"
"I'll help too!" Sasuke opened his Sharingan as well. Unlike Kakashi's, his only had two tomoe—but even so, the rapidly spinning portraits were still clearly visible to both of them.
Time ticked by, second by second. Naruto quickly grew impatient. Sakura wasn't around—she'd stormed off earlier after getting snapped at for no reason—and she didn't feel like talking to Sasuke anyway.
Bored, Naruto started looking around—and suddenly spotted a red-haired Sand ninja with the kanji for love carved into his forehead.
He hopped over and landed right in front of him.
"You're Gaara, right? I heard you're gonna become the Kazekage someday!" Naruto jabbed a thumb at his own nose. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki! And one day I'm gonna be Hokage! I won't lose to you, dattebayo!"
"..." Gaara stared at the goofy grin in front of him and replied coldly, "Impossible…"
Naruto took a critical hit—but quickly bounced back, shouting, "Just you wait! I'll beat you and become Hokage! For sure!!"
"I have no interest… in the weak…"
Not wanting to look at that stupid face anymore, Gaara turned his back on him. The massive gourd on his back shoved Naruto aside.
Temari crossed her arms and looked at Naruto with disdain. "You think you can beat Gaara? Go call over your black-haired teammate instead—though it wouldn't make a difference." After all, her little brother was no ordinary ninja.
Kankuro looked him up and down. "You sure you're awake? With that scrawny body and that empty head, shouldn't you be running the moment you see my brother?"
Their attitudes made Naruto gnaw furiously at his clothes in frustration. Sasuke again! Damn it—one day, he was definitely going to beat that bastard Sasuke!
After Naruto left, the Sand siblings vaguely heard the Leaf villagers whispering.
"Is he stupid? Challenging that Gaara?"
"And talking about becoming Hokage—what an embarrassment to Konoha."
"Did he forget how that guy crushed a Grass ninja to death with sand?"
"Heh, but honestly, if that Sand monster killed the demon fox, wouldn't that be a good thing?"
"Hey, keep it down."
"This is quiet enough. That demon fox is just a monster anyway—it doesn't matter if he hears. Besides, he probably already knows. I heard he even stole that thing before—the Scroll of Seals. I really don't know what the Third Hokage is thinking, not locking him in a cage."
The whispers gradually turned into mocking laughter.
Gaara: "..." Monster? Naruto Uzumaki?
Watching the blond figure disappear into the distance—too weak. So weak that killing him would take just one finger.
—
On the other side, Sasuke had overused his eyes. Blood began to seep from one of them, and Mikoto immediately soothed him and made him close his Sharingan. Kakashi wasn't in great shape either, but he could still keep going, continuing to calculate the rotation pattern.
Covering his eye, Sasuke shared what he'd learned. "Most of them are genin. Chunin appear far more often than jonin. So far, I haven't seen any Kage-level."
"Any other information?" Shikaku Nara asked.
"Some people appear more than once—especially genin. I saw the same person at least three times." Rapidly memorizing and distinguishing the countless flashing images made Sasuke feel like his head was about to explode.
"Hm…" Kakashi hummed softly.
Beside him, Might Guy looked at the bulging vein at Kakashi's temple and sighed inwardly—as expected of my lifelong rival! Too bad he didn't have a Sharingan to help at all.
"I just saw a Hokage," Kakashi continued, eyes still fixed on the screen. "The Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju-sama."
"!!"
The elders present were shaken. They all glanced toward the Hokage Monument, memories of their teacher surfacing.
"Sasuke," Kakashi went on, "you noticed it too, right? The borders around different portraits have different colors."
"Yeah." Sasuke leaned back against his mother, covering one eye and forcing the other to keep watching. "Genin have gray borders, chunin are blue, jonin are purple…"
"Kage are gold," Kakashi added. "As for Anbu, Root, and missing-nin—their colors can be blue, purple, or even gold."
Shikaku quickly pieced the information together, pondering the meaning behind the border colors.
He'd had no leads—until he happened to see the Akimichi father and son nearby, fiddling with a bonus card pulled from a bag of chips.
"…Rarity?" Shikaku muttered, stroking his chin.
"What do you mean?" Koharu asked.
"Just a guess," Shikaku said, taking the bonus card from Choji's hand. "Like these collectible cards from snacks—rarity based on strength. N cards, R cards, SR cards, SSR cards."
The Third Hokage pondered this. "If that's the case… it does line up." What he couldn't fathom was the identity behind this power—reviving the dead, revealing visions of the future, and perfectly assessing every ninja's strength. Any one of those could shake the entire shinobi world.
As dusk approached, Kakashi finally closed his Sharingan.
"Found the pattern?" the Third Hokage asked.
Kakashi panted. "I won't disappoint." Despite his words, his expression was heavy—he'd watched the entire cycle several times, yet never once saw that person.
Obito… why… why aren't you there?!
"Since that's the case," Danzo said coldly, "Hatake Kakashi, have Naruto revive the First Hokage."
"..." Kakashi didn't answer. It was a silent refusal—not only because he'd intended to revive the Fourth Hokage, but also because he answered only to the Hokage. Any order beyond that, he could reject.
"You dare defy me…" Danzo's voice sank. First that demon fox brat embarrassed him, and now Hatake Kakashi. Did Hiruzen's people really think so little of him?!
The oppressive surge of chakra was stopped by the Third Hokage.
"Hehe, Danzo," he said calmly. "Do you remember what the First and Second Hokage once said? 'Protect those who admire the village and believe in you, nurture them, and find the next generation you can entrust the future to.' They passed the Will of Fire to me. My duty is to pass it on to the next generation—again and again."
"What are you trying to say, Hiruzen?!"
"You and I are already this old. Should we really keep relying on our teachers to protect us? In my view, the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, is far more suitable. When he gave his life for the village, he was only twenty-four—much younger than us."
Ignoring Danzo's darkened expression, the Third Hokage directly ordered Kakashi to guide Naruto in reviving the Fourth Hokage.
"Yes!"
This time, Kakashi agreed without hesitation. He had Naruto place his hand on the slot machine lever while activating his Sharingan, waiting for the calculated moment.
"Hey, Kakashi-sensei, what am I supposed to do, dattebayo?"
"Just relax your body," Kakashi said, placing his hand over Naruto's. "When the timing is right, I'll press it down with you."
Naruto pouted and muttered, "Tch—so much for some super S-rank mission only I could do! You're still doing everything yourself!"
"Hehe, not quite," the Third Hokage said kindly. "We still need your luck. I never knew you were this lucky—but don't let that turn you into a gambler, alright?"
Thinking of his gambling-addicted student, the Third Hokage suddenly missed them.
Kakashi focused completely. According to the pattern he'd found—ten more images and Rin would appear. After Rin would be Kushina-sensei… and after her, the chance of seeing his teacher would be extremely high!
He forced himself to stay calm, watching the images flip by one after another…
Rin—
Rin Nohara's portrait appeared. By Kakashi's calculations, the next should have been Kushina Uzumaki—
But things didn't go as expected.
After Rin came a portrait he had never seen before.
A glowing red border surrounded it—brighter than even the Kage-level frames. The entire image radiated a faint light!
Who was it?!
The man looked to be in his thirties, with short white hair. Half his face was marred by a grotesque spiral scar; the other half was completely intact. He'd clearly suffered horrific injuries—his right neck and shoulder below it were deathly pale, inhuman.
Most striking of all, he possessed a pair of Sharingan—yet unlike any other. There were no tomoe, only black, scythe-like patterns etched into the crimson pupils.
A fraction of a second to everyone else—but to Kakashi, the image was frozen in place.
That face—one he had replayed countless times in his memories—overlapped with the man in the portrait.
O…bi…to…
"!!"
"Kakashi!!"
Sasuke's shout snapped Kakashi back to reality. But in that brief moment of hesitation, as Kakashi pressed the lever down with Naruto's hand—
The portrait of the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, had already flashed past.