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A full month had passed since Volume 10 closed its pages on the legendary appearance of Jiraiya.
A whole month of waiting, of discussions that never quieted down, of speculation that filled every corner of Konoha: What would the white-haired Sannin do with the boy? What about the finals? And what about the snake still moving in the shadows?
And so, when a small sign was hung on the front of the Art Store three days ago, bearing a single line — "Volume Eleven: Coming Soon" — Konoha turned into a village counting down the hours.
At dawn on release day, with the first chime of the doorbell, Namikaze Minato was among the very first to enter the Art Store.
The thirteen-year-old boy greeted Rob, who stood behind the reception counter, with a smile, then headed straight for the front shelf, where fresh copies of Volume Eleven stood lined up in gleaming, tidy rows, still carrying the scent of new paper.
Minato took a copy from the top of the shelf, paid for it, then made his way between the shelves toward his usual spot: that seat in the quiet corner of the reading hall which, over the months, had come to be known by his name — so much so that the store's regulars left it empty of their own accord.
He sat down, leaned back, and raised the volume before him to study the cover for the first time.
Then he froze in place.
The cover looked like an ancient painting hung in some grand hall: an ornate golden frame, its edges running with fine, cryptic script, embracing a deep green background through which leaves drifted down… and in the depths of that green, half-dissolved into shadow, two enormous eyes of a mighty toad whose presence filled the entire background without any other part of him showing.
And in front of all of it stood a man and a boy.
In the back stood Jiraiya.
The version from twenty years in the future that Konoha had come to know a month ago: the wild white hair cascading like a lion's mane down past his lower back, the metal forehead protector with its two small horns bearing the kanji for "Oil," the red coat billowing behind him, the massive scroll strapped at his waist. His arms were spread wide open, like a man opening the whole stage for the one before him, and on his exposed palms were painted strange red seals.
And in the front, standing ahead of his teacher, low in a fighting stance, hands clasped on the verge of forming a seal… stood Naruto.
The orange jumpsuit. The determined blue eyes. The three lines on each cheek. And on his small hands, the very same red seals painted on the palms of the man standing behind him — as if the two of them had just come out of the same training, belonged to the same art, the same path.
The teacher opening his arms behind the boy… and the boy stepping forward.
Minato remained seated in his place as the store gradually filled around him, his eyes never leaving the cover.
'Jiraiya-sensei…' His eyes moved slowly from the long white hair to the outspread arms, then down to the blond boy in the front.
'…And this boy.' The boy who carried the name of Kushina's clan. The boy who resembled him so much that half the village had been turning to look at him in the street ever since the first volume came out, and the boys at the Academy kept asking if they were related. The boy whom Minato had learned, volume after volume, to look at with something that made his chest tighten and expand at the same time, without yet knowing a name for that feeling.
And now, his teacher — his own teacher, who this very morning had drilled him on kunai throwing until his fingers swelled — stood behind that boy on the cover, twenty years later, arms wide open, as if guarding his back.
Minato felt something warm rise in his chest. He didn't even try to resist it.
'You'll be there for him… won't you, sensei?'
Then his eyes caught the small line at the bottom of the cover, above the volume number:
Story & Art by: Uzumaki Rubiro
'Uzumaki Rubiro…'
Minato lifted his gaze for a moment toward the store counter, where the owner of that name was handing volumes to the stream of incoming customers with his eternal calm, as if he weren't selling the village its own future, one volume at a time.
Then Minato turned the volume over in his hands and read the summary on the back.
In preparation for the finals of the Chunin Selection Exams, Naruto trains with his mischievous new teacher Jiraiya, struggling to control the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox's chakra sealed within him. Meanwhile, other ninja villages are forming secret alliances against Konohagakure…
He read it once.
Then he read it again, the smile fading from his eyes line by line.
'The Nine-Tailed Fox's chakra… sealed within him.'
It had been known for volumes now, but seeing it written like that — so simply, on the back of a volume that thousands would read today — made the sentence heavier. A boy about his own age, training to carry the very thing an entire village needed its greatest seals to restrain.
Then the last line.
'Secret alliances… against Konoha.'
The blue eyes narrowed slightly.
Minato was only thirteen, but the mind that made the Academy instructors exchange glances over his exam papers needed no more than a single sentence to see the threads connecting.
'Orochimaru appeared… then Jiraiya-sensei… and now the villages are moving in the shadows.'
'The future is getting crowded.'
…
Barely minutes had passed before the store's door burst open with such force that the bell hanging above it let out a startled clang.
"Minatooooo!"
Kushina tore through the store like a small red storm, her long hair flying behind her like angry flame, weaving past shelves and customers at a speed that made two people standing in front of the new-releases shelf step back as a precaution — then she stopped in front of his seat in the quiet corner, panting, hands on her knees.
"Did… did they start…"
A gasp.
"…selling?"
"Twenty minutes ago."
Minato answered gently.
Kushina slowly raised her head and stared at him.
"And you're sitting here… in your seat… with your copy… and you didn't stop by my house on your way to call me?!"
"I did stop by. And I knocked. The last time I woke you up early, a kunai went through the door and nearly gave me a haircut."
"That's not an excuse! Uzumaki throw kunai in their sleep all the time! That means knock harder and duck!"
Then she snatched the volume from his hand before he could answer — 'I'll grab my own copy from the shelf in a bit, this one's just for previewing!' — and took her usual place in the seat next to his, and looked at the cover.
And went silent.
The panting was gone, the protest was gone, and what remained were two wide violet eyes moving back and forth between the white-haired man… and the boy standing before him in a fighting stance that knew no retreat.
"Look at him…"
She said at last, in a much lower voice, her finger touching the edge of the cover at Naruto's face.
"Standing in the front… in front of a Sannin… and not a single speck of fear in his eyes."
Then she smiled — a wide, proud smile, the kind that only daughters of the Uzumaki clan possess.
"That's a boy of my clan, without the slightest doubt."
But Minato noticed how her eyes stopped, on their way back from the cover, at one line in the summary on the back of the volume. And he noticed how the smile stayed on her lips while her eyes left it for just one second.
The Nine-Tailed Fox's chakra sealed within him.
Kushina said nothing about that line.
She got up to fetch her own copy from the shelf, then returned to her seat beside him.
…
The doorbell had barely settled before it rang again.
Orochimaru entered.
He entered in complete silence, with his usual soundless steps, and the noise of the hall dropped a full degree without anyone ordering anyone to quiet down. Ever since Volume 10, no one in Konoha looked at the man with the same old eyes anymore, no matter how hard everyone tried to pretend otherwise.
Orochimaru passed through all the stares as if they were air, took his copy from the shelf, and cast a single long look at the cover as he stood before the payment counter.
'Jiraiya… a teacher.'
The corner of his eyebrow rose by a hair's width.
'The world in that future is stranger than I thought.'
Then he turned the volume over and read the summary with narrowed eyes, and paused at the last line… but for a reason that was his alone.
'Secret alliances against Konoha…'
And across his lips, for a moment too brief for any of those present to swear to, passed something resembling interest.
Then he moved on to his usual spot in the deepest corner of the store, where the light was dimmer and the eyes fewer, sat down, and opened the volume to its first page.
…
Minutes after him, Tsunade entered… and she did not enter alone.
"One copy for me, one for Dan, and one for this little—"
"I'm not little!"
Nawaki shot past her toward the front shelf like an arrow, grabbed his copy himself, and raised it high like a spoil of war.
"I'm going to reread Rock Lee's fight one more time before I start the new one! That fight is the best thing ever drawn in history!"
"You've read it forty times."
Said Tsunade.
"And I'll read it forty more!"
Behind them, Kato Dan entered with his calm smile, gently closed the door behind the small storm that had preceded him, and offered Rob a polite greeting before paying for the three copies.
The three of them chose their seats on the right side of the reading hall — Tsunade and Dan side by side, and Nawaki cross-legged on the seat facing them, the new volume on his knees and Volume 10 beside him, just in case.
Tsunade looked at the cover for the first time and raised her eyebrows.
"That idiot… on the cover."
"He looks rather majestic, actually."
Dan commented fairly, studying the outspread arms and the flying white hair.
"Never say that in front of him."
Said Tsunade immediately.
"Please. The entire village couldn't handle the consequences."
"Who? Jiraiya-san?"
Asked Nawaki, lifting his head.
"But he really does look amazing! Look, even the boy is standing in front of him like a real student!"
Tsunade looked at her excited little brother, then at the blond boy on the cover, standing in a fighting stance before his teacher.
And something in the comparison made her fall silent a moment longer than she should have, before she opened her volume.
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 204: The Training Begins, and the Snake's Seal!
Chapter 205: Volume 11 Reaches the Four Villages!
Chapter 206: Our Ally, the Sand, Is Tied to the Sound!
Chapter 207: The Last Dance of the Crescent Moon!
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