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At the very moment Konoha was drowning in the pages of Volume Eleven, Rob's clones in the four other villages had already handed those same volumes to queues no shorter than Konoha's.
And at that very moment, in five reading halls separated by mountains, sand, and mist, fingers were turning nearly the same pages.
For some time now, the Naruto manga had ceased to be an internal affair of Konoha.
It had become the most important monthly event in the entire world.
…
Sunagakure:
Inside the Art Store in Suna, the village's leading figures sat in their usual places, the new volume in their hands.
The shinobi of the Sand laughed like everyone else at the scene of the legendary Sannin's downfall before the Sexy Jutsu, and one jonin sarcastically remarked that Konoha's greatest secret weapon, apparently, was a blonde girl made of smoke.
But in the corner where the leaders sat, the laughter did not last long.
"Look carefully at what happened after the acceptance."
said Granny Chiyo, her eyes fixed on the hot spring page.
Her aged fingers — the fingers of Suna's foremost puppet maker and sealing expert — were tracing over the drawing of the seal on the boy's stomach without her realizing it, as if redrawing it in the air.
"An Eight Trigrams seal… built from two Four Symbols Seals… deliberately designed to allow the beast's chakra to leak into the host."
Ebizo raised his eyebrows slowly.
"A design that grants the jinchūriki the key to his own power… That is the complete opposite of our school, sister."
"That is exactly my point."
Chiyo half-closed the volume and looked at those present, one by one.
"We seal beasts inside our children like someone burying a catastrophe and praying it never gets out. But that Fourth Hokage… he sealed the catastrophe and left its bearer the door and the key."
"Then look at the result on these pages: their boy trains to use the fox's power under the supervision of a Sannin… while our boy, in that future, never sleeps, slaughters, and was nearly defeated by a child with nothing but his fists."
A heavy silence settled over the corner.
For ever since Volume Ten, no subject had weighed heavier on the hearts of Suna's leaders than Gaara.
From Rasa's perspective, seated not far away beside his fiancée Karura, the comparison was too cruel to endure in silence.
'Konoha forges its jinchūriki into a sword with a hilt…'
'And we, in that future, forged a sword without a grip — one that cuts everyone who tries to wield it.'
And in another corner of the hall, young Sasori was reading the seal page through half-lidded eyes that suggested boredom — but his fingers betrayed his feigned indifference, tapping against his knee in the rhythm of someone memorizing.
"A seal that works like a faucet… an interesting concept."
he whispered to himself.
"If the same principle were applied to puppets… an external chakra reservoir that leaks on demand…"
"Sasori, did you say something?"
his mother asked with a smile.
"Nothing."
As for Karura, her eyes were fixed on an entirely different scene: the white-haired sage opening his arms behind the blond boy.
The young woman felt that same strange, instinctive pull that had visited her for volumes now, every time that particular boy appeared — that warm, incomprehensible thing that squeezed her chest for no reason.
"Lucky you…"
she whispered to the page, in a voice not even Rasa beside her could hear.
"You finally found someone to stand behind you."
As for the Third Kazekage, he had not even made it past the back cover.
"Meanwhile, other ninja villages are forming secret alliances against Konohagakure…"
He read the line for the third time, then raised his eyes toward Chiyo.
"Gaara fights in Konoha's exam under the banner of an open alliance… while these same pages speak of villages conspiring in secret."
"So tell me, Chiyo… when the names are revealed in the coming volumes — on which side of the page will we find our own?"
The old woman did not answer.
And her silence was more eloquent than any answer.
…
Iwagakure:
And at that very moment, the commotion was at its peak inside the reading hall of the Art Store in Iwa.
"Twenty years in the future and that pervert is alive and well, peeping on bathhouses? Konoha's shinobi really don't die easily!"
"Forget the peeping! Look at the entrance! He shows up sitting on a summoned toad and yells at the jinchūriki instead of greeting him… Konoha's shinobi are stranger than I thought!"
"Guys… did you read the back cover? Villages allying against Konoha… who do you think they are?"
The voices suddenly dropped at that last question, and the shinobi exchanged tense glances before each returned to his volume, pretending he had heard nothing.
And at the head of the hall, the Third Tsuchikage, Ōnoki, was reading, the smoke rising from his pipe in a steady rhythm.
That rhythm broke only twice.
The first time was at the Sexy Jutsu scene.
"Pff—"
The short old man blew the smoke out through his nose in one burst, struggling mightily not to laugh in front of his village's shinobi.
"Konoha's legendary Sannin… bought by a child with a girl made of smoke."
Ōnoki muttered, wiping his eye.
"Had we known this during the war, we'd have spared ourselves a great deal of blood. All it would have taken was sending him a reconnaissance squad of beauties."
Kitsuchi, standing behind him, let out a short laugh before remembering he was in the presence of the Kage, then coughed and feigned seriousness.
As for the second time the pipe's rhythm broke… there was no trace of laughter in it.
It was at the seal page.
'An odd-numbered seal over an even-numbered one… deliberate sabotage by Orochimaru. That much is understandable — the snake disabling Konoha's weapon.'
'But the sabotage is not what matters.'
The old man's eyes narrowed as he reread Jiraiya's analysis.
'What matters is the original seal.'
'The Fourth Hokage designed the Kyūbi's restraint to double as a faucet of power… and then, twenty years later, Konoha assigned an entire Sannin as that boy's personal mentor.'
Ōnoki blew his smoke slowly toward the ceiling.
"Kitsuchi."
"Yes, Tsuchikage-sama."
"When you read these pages, what do you see?"
The young jonin thought for a moment.
"I see… a boy learning to walk on water?"
"I see a village charging its greatest weapon — methodically, generation after generation."
said Ōnoki quietly.
"The Fourth builds the faucet, the snake tries to shut it, the Sannin reopens it… the hands of three of Konoha's greatest men have all passed over the belly of a single boy."
"That boy is not a character in a story, Kitsuchi. That boy is a military project with a comic attached."
Then Ōnoki turned the volume over and reread the back cover, lingering long over the line about secret alliances.
'Villages allying against Konoha…'
'And the question worth its weight in gold: is Iwagakure, in that future, among them?'
The old man tapped his pipe empty and spoke the line that the councils of Iwa would pass around in the days to come:
"Prepare more ink and paper. From this day on, every new volume gets read twice…"
"Once for the story, and once for the war."
…
Kumogakure:
And at that very moment, in the reading hall of the Art Store in Kumo — the very hall built upon the square that had witnessed the breaking of the Cloud's pride — sat the Third Raikage and his two sons.
Ever since that day, the day the eastern mountains were vaporized, Kumo's relationship with the Art Store had changed completely. No one spoke of seizing it anymore. All the talk now was of reading what was inside it… and understanding it before everyone else.
"Bwahaha! Look at the perverted old man! He fell right off his toad!"
Young A was slapping his thigh, laughing at the Sexy Jutsu scene, while Killer Bee swayed beside him to an internal rhythm no one else could hear.
"The old sage dropped with blood from his nose smoke-girl stronger than a thousand blows yo!"
"Stop singing, you fool."
But the Third Raikage was not laughing.
The massive man — bearer of the strongest lightning armor in history — was reading the seal page with eyes that missed no detail.
'A seal designed to grant the host the power of his own beast…'
Then he glanced, from the corner of his eye, at his adopted younger son.
Killer Bee. Jinchūriki of the Hachibi.
And in Bee's depths, in the dark, damp world where the eight-tailed bull dwelled, the Hachibi opened one enormous eye.
"Boy… do you see that seal?"
'Hm? The fox's seal? What about it?'
"Its maker designed it to let the Kyūbi's chakra leak into that little boy… Heh. What foolish trust."
"That fox is the worst-tempered of my siblings, and the one who hates humans most. To open a door for him inside a child's body… either that Fourth Hokage is the greatest sealer in history…"
"…or the biggest gambler I have seen in my long life."
'Heh… reminds me of someone.'
Bee smiled inwardly.
'You hated humans too, old bull.'
"Shut up and read."
As for the Third Raikage, he laid his enormous palm over the open page and spoke to his two sons in his deep voice:
"Memorize this lesson well."
"Konoha does not fear its monsters. Konoha raises its monsters, feeds them, and assigns them teachers."
"One day, a fully realized jinchūriki of the Kyūbi will stand on some battlefield… and on that day, I want Kumo to have raised its own jinchūriki better."
He looked directly at Killer Bee.
"Not as a weapon in a storehouse…"
"…but as a shinobi who walks side by side with his beast."
Bee's internal rhythm stopped for a moment.
As for young A, he suddenly sat bolt upright and slammed his fist into his palm.
"Then it's simple, Pops!"
"If Konoha's jinchūriki trains under a Sannin… then I'll train Bee myself! Double training! No — triple! From dawn until midnight!"
"Yo! Big bro wants to kill me before the fox even gets the chance~"
Bee protested, shrinking back in his seat.
"That is well-placed enthusiasm."
The Third Raikage nodded with total seriousness, completely ignoring his younger son's protest.
"You two start tomorrow."
"POPS?!"
Bee's internal rhythm stopped once more — but this time from pure shock.
And in the depths, the Hachibi closed his eye again. Yet anyone who could have seen him in that moment would have glimpsed something like interest on the old bull's features.
…
Kirigakure:
And at that very moment, the reading hall of the Art Store in Kirigakure was filled to the last seat, the eternal mist coiling around the building's walls outside while warmth and light filled the inside.
The people of the Mist laughed at the Sexy Jutsu scene as the whole world had laughed.
"A Konoha Sannin brought down by a nosebleed! Hahaha! And these are the people who beat us in the war?!"
"Lower your voice, you idiot… the Mizukage-sama is here."
And indeed, in a spot not far from the head of the hall, sat the Third Mizukage, Hozuki Mizuru, with his own copy of Volume Eleven and a small notebook on his knee.
For ever since the night the real Rob had visited him in his office — and the slap whose taste he still remembered every time he looked at the wooden wall of his building — the Mizukage's habits had changed completely. He no longer sent someone to buy his volumes for him, and he no longer read them alone behind closed doors.
Now he sat here, in the hall, among his village's shinobi and civilians.
For the man who had survived that night had learned two lessons. The first: the Art Store is not to be made an enemy…
And the second: the most valuable thing in the store is not the volumes, but the people's reactions to them. And whoever wishes to know which way the wind blows in his village should sit where it blows.
The Mizukage read the training pages with the cold eye of a military analyst: an entire Sannin devoting himself to training the Kyūbi's jinchūriki, and a seal designed from the very beginning to turn the beast into a reservoir of power.
'Konoha, in that future, holds a winning card that grows stronger every day…'
'While Kiri, in those pages, has so far offered nothing but a runaway mercenary and a boy who died beneath the snow.'
He paused at that thought, and felt a strange bitterness he had not expected of himself.
Then he turned the volume over, reread the back cover, and wrote a single line in his small notebook.
"Secret alliances against Konoha…"
'From Kiri's perspective, this line is either an opportunity… or a trap.'
'If there are villages conspiring against Konoha in that future, then knowing their names before anyone else is worth mountains of gold.'
'And if Kiri itself is among them…'
His pen stopped, and his eyes rose, unbidden, toward Rob's clone standing behind the store counter, handing volumes to customers with eternal calm.
He remembered two eyes empty of all feeling, and a pressure that had made his instincts scream of death.
'…then may the heavens protect us from the day our secrets are laid bare on those pages.'
…
And in the front rows of that same hall, at that very moment, a father and son sat side by side.
Momochi Genma… and little Zabuza.
Around them, the children of the district were laughing until tears came, at the blonde girl and the sage's bleeding nose.
But the seven-year-old sitting beside his father did not laugh.
Volume Eleven lay open on his small knees, and his sharp eyes — eyes that did not suit his age — read only the training pages. Over and over.
The blond boy falls into the water. Gets up. Falls. Gets up.
Then he found a master who opened the way for him… and finally, he stood upon the water.
Little Zabuza kept staring at that particular page — the page of the standing — while the noise around him drifted further and further from his ears.
Then, without lifting his eyes from the page, he said:
"Dad."
Genma turned to his son. Over the past weeks, he had learned that this serious tone — so strange on a child of seven — always preceded something worth listening to.
"Yes?"
The child pointed his small finger at the page, where Naruto finally stood upon the water, steam rising around him, the white-haired master watching from behind.
"This boy… found a strong master. That's why he got stronger."
"So it seems."
Little Zabuza finally raised his head and stared at his father with eyes that had seen, weeks ago, on a giant screen, a man dying beneath the snow beside the only person he had ever loved.
"I want a master too."
"I want to become strong… much stronger than what I'll become in the future."
Genma did not answer right away.
He looked at his small son sitting beside him, two little fists clenched over the open volume, then at the page between them, where a white-haired master stood behind a boy upon the water.
Then he reached out and laid his hand on his son's small head.
"Alright."
"But on one condition."
"When you become strong…"
The father looked straight into his son's eyes.
"…choose for yourself who you protect with that strength. Don't let anyone choose in your place."
The child did not fully understand the meaning.
But he nodded, and clenched his small fists tighter over the open page.
And so, at the very moment five villages were reading about a master who opened his arms behind a boy…
in the village that had taught entire generations that hearts are tools, a father laid his hand upon his son's head, and promised to open the way for him.
While the mist coiled around the walls of the Art Store — for the first time in a long while — just a little thinner than usual.
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 206: Our Ally, the Sand, Is Tied to the Sound!
Chapter 207: The Last Dance of the Crescent Moon!
Chapter 208: A Decisive Meeting!
Chapter 209: Madara's Game!
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