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"Come to think of it, I should go check on my nine little troublemakers."
Manji swept his hair back and tied it into a clean ponytail, the sharp line of it adding an edge to his already striking profile.
Simple blue-green robes, tailored well, still carrying the faint scent of mountain grass and morning dew from the Sage Region.
After all these centuries, he still cared about the Tailed Beasts he'd raised. They were his students. His responsibility.
The shinobi world had descended into open warfare. Ninshū was gone. The power vacuum had turned every clan into a hungry wolf, and every wolf was eyeing the same prey: the Tailed Beasts and their world-ending power.
For years, Manji hadn't bothered intervening. Ordinary humans posed zero threat to creatures of that magnitude. Let them try. They'd learn.
But the landscape had shifted. Post-Ninshū Shinobi Clans had inherited Hagoromo's legacy. Real techniques. Real combat power. Enough to genuinely endanger a Tailed Beast if they coordinated properly.
Manji was their teacher. Protecting them wasn't optional.
He slung the Crimson Fan across his back, its surface patterns catching the faint light of the Sage Region, and launched himself off the stone steps of Mount Myōboku.
One teleportation later, he stood in the mortal world.
The exact crossroads where he'd picked up Sarutobi as a child, all those lifetimes ago.
Except the village was gone.
Collapsed walls buried under wild grass. Scorched earth where nothing would grow. A few crooked dead trees still standing, their bare branches hosting a handful of crows that croaked into the emptiness.
"Wiped out..."
Manji studied the ruins. The layer of dust and decay on the broken walls told him this hadn't happened recently. Decades ago, at least.
He looked across the desolation and spoke to no one.
"Palaces by the thousands, all turned to dust."
"When empires rise, the people suffer. When empires fall, the people suffer."
That was the cruel arithmetic of history. Under Ninshū, ordinary people had lived within boundaries set by those above them. Controlled, but protected. Now that the controlling force had vanished, the protection vanished with it. Clans warred. Villages burned. And the common folk caught between them had no voice in any of it.
Manji found himself thinking about Hagoromo.
The man had possessed power that could have reshaped the entire world. He could have been a king. A revolutionary. A guardian who used overwhelming force to build lasting peace.
Instead, he chose to be a preacher.
If Hagoromo had governed instead of sermonized, the shinobi world might look very different right now. Fewer wars. Fewer graves. Fewer empty villages rotting under indifferent skies.
But then again, if he had, the events of the Naruto storyline would never happen...
Manji shook off the thought and headed for the Ninshū ruins.
The grand halls that had once housed thousands of disciples were completely gone. A few fragments of foundation stone peeked out from waist-high weeds. That was all that remained.
Only the grass remembered that something important had stood here once.
"Blink of an eye, and the whole world changes."
Manji stood with his hands behind his back, scanning the overgrown wasteland. His voice was barely louder than the breeze.
"The cranes have flown. Only the tower remains."
Actually, no. The tower's gone too.
He allowed himself a quiet, self-deprecating smile. He'd spent Ninshū's entire existence avoiding the place, and now that it was rubble, here he was getting sentimental about it.
Manji raised a hand. Sage chakra rippled across his features, aging them, weathering them, until he wore the face of a man in his late sixties. White hair. Lined skin. Clear, knowing eyes set beneath heavy brows. A traveling elder. Unremarkable. Forgettable.
He still carried the Crimson Fan on his back. Old habits.
"Which one should I visit first?"
The nearest Tailed Beast to the Ninshū ruins would be the Nine-Tails.
........
Ancient forest. Canopy so thick the ground never saw direct sunlight.
"RRRAAAOOOGHHH!!!!!!"
A tidal wave of crimson chakra exploded outward, flattening everything in its path.
Nine colossal tails swept through the trees like scythes through wheat. Trunks the width of houses snapped like matchsticks. Debris and splinters filled the air in a choking cloud.
"YOU PEOPLE HAVE THE NERVE TO COME AFTER ME??"
Kurama roared, berserk with fury, crimson eyes blazing at the formation of shinobi closing in from every direction.
The hunters were Uchiha. Elite forces. Dozens of them fanning out in a precise semicircle, the fan crest on their backs snapping in the chakra-charged wind.
At the formation's tip stood their leader. Tall. Sharp-featured. Radiating the cold, absolute confidence of someone who'd never once questioned whether he belonged at the front.
Uchiha Senichi.
Current clan head. Acknowledged as the Uchiha's Greatest Genius in living memory.
His eyes opened, and crimson flooded them. Three tomoe spun, blurred, reconfigured into the elaborate geometry of the Mangekyō Sharingan. The pressure of his gaze slammed into Kurama's rampaging chakra like a wall.
"Form up! Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!"
"Barrier seal, activate!"
"Sharingan sync! Layered genjutsu interference!"
The Uchiha moved as one organism. Hands blurred through identical seal sequences. Torrents of flame erupted from every direction, coiling into fire dragons that wrapped around Kurama's massive frame. Simultaneously, dozens of Sharingan wove invisible genjutsu threads toward the beast's consciousness, probing for cracks in his mental defenses.
"Damn you! Indra's brats!" Kurama snarled, tails hammering the ground, a Tailed Beast Bomb condensing in his jaws. Red-black energy swirled into a sphere of concentrated annihilation.
Senichi's Mangekyō spun faster. He launched himself skyward, ocular power surging to maximum output.
"FREEZE!"
A crushing wave of mental force locked onto Kurama's motor functions. The Tailed Beast Bomb's formation stuttered.
But then Senichi's eyes slammed shut.
He dropped out of the sky like a stone, crashing to earth on both knees.
"Damn it... the pain... so the rumors are true? Overusing the Mangekyō really does lead to blindness?"
He knelt in the dirt, jaw clenched, mind racing. If his eyes were failing, how was he supposed to fight Senju Shūichi?
The only option was capturing the Nine-Tails. Raw power to compensate for what he was losing.
At that moment, a figure appeared at the edge of the battlefield.
An old man in blue-green robes. White hair. Serene expression. A large war fan strapped to his back. Standing beside a dead tree as if he'd been rooted there for years.
(Note: This is not Manji's true appearance, he can change his features at Will.)
No chakra signature. No sound of arrival. No footsteps. As if the forest itself had simply decided to produce him.
Manji. Fresh from Mount Myōboku.
"Quickly! Protect the clan head!"
"Don't let that beast fire!"
The Uchiha scrambled, throwing chains at Kurama, trying to restrain him through sheer numbers.
"NINE-TAILS! SUBMIT TO THE SHARINGAN! BOW TO ME!" Senichi forced his damaged eyes open and attempted a direct mental domination technique.
And right in the middle of all of it, Manji strolled into the center of the battlefield.
"Who the hell—?"
Senichi blinked through the pain.
The Uchiha fighters had considerably less patience.
"Get out of here, old man! You want to DIE??"
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