April 1, Konoha Year 33.
A new school year began at the Ninja Academy.
The graduating sixth-years and the first-years moving up to their next classes vacated their old rooms, saying goodbye to one cluster of familiar faces while welcoming another of strangers. Before anyone quite realized it, Konoha's little crown prince had gone from wide-eyed freshman to soon-to-be graduate. Next March, the Hokage's treasured grandson, carrying the glory of the Senju name, would become a full-fledged shinobi.
Gojo Yoru, now already a fourth-year student, had a keen interest in that particular grandson of the Hokage.
The reason was simple. Nawaki represented an anchor point.
Tsunade's little brother, the First Hokage's grandson, was fated to die at twelve during the Second Shinobi World War. Which meant that, if the future had not already been twisted beyond recognition, the Second Shinobi World War would erupt when Nawaki turned twelve.
That was Konoha Year 35.
At most, Gojo had two more years. Three, if fortune smiled on him.
If Konoha's manpower ever fell short, children of this generation could be sent to the battlefield at any moment. Under special circumstances, even genin might be placed under a jonin or chunin and thrown into operations like the Kannabi Bridge mission from the Third Shinobi World War.
And once that happened, they could run into chunin-level or jonin-level enemies at any time.
Before the Second Shinobi World War truly broke out, Gojo Yoru had to possess enough strength to survive every hypothetical disaster he could imagine.
Hands in his pockets, he walked through the school gates. Aside from the nervous first-years, the students of the Ninja Academy still gave him a wide berth just as they had for years, not even daring to meet his eyes for fear of provoking the infamous demon king of the school.
What none of them knew was that this so-called great demon king was only a shadow clone.
Starting the year before, apart from practical training, Gojo Yoru had barely set foot in the academy at all. If not for the chance of being matched against Namikaze Minato and having his clone exposed in the process, he would not have bothered to attend in the first place.
***
May 17.
The news that arrived that day shook the entire ninja world.
For a thousand years, through the era of warring states, the Uzumaki clan had stood as distant kin of the Senju, masters of sealing techniques feared across the continent, and a pillar of strength all their own. The Land of Whirlpools and the Hidden Eddy Village they had built across the sea had seemed untouchable.
And yet it had fallen.
The Land of Fire, ally to the Land of Whirlpools, had not even been given time to react.
Because the invaders were not the nearby island nations, nor the small countries of the shinobi continent. The ones who struck were the four great nations other than the Land of Fire.
Unlike Konoha, which had been forged from many powerful clans of the warring-states era, Uzushiogakure was built almost entirely around the Uzumaki clan itself, supported only by scattered outsiders. They had never possessed the military depth to withstand four great powers descending on them at once.
Faced with the combined encirclement of the four great ninja villages, they had been helpless.
Everyone on that island—Uzumaki clansmen and ordinary residents alike—was slaughtered without mercy. Bodies were burned away by ninjutsu, buried beneath the earth, or packed up and carried off for research. Very few escaped alive.
Those who survived were, in truth, mostly women of the clan who had already married out, abandoned the Uzumaki surname, and settled elsewhere.
Fortunately, as Uzushiogakure's ally, Konoha had always kept ninja stationed there.
Under orders from the leadership of Whirlpool Village, those Konoha shinobi took what remained of the Uzumaki clan's hope and escorted them back to the Leaf. By the time Konoha's reinforcements finally reached the Land of Whirlpools, the slaughter had already ended. The island had become a wasteland strewn with corpses.
When the news reached Konoha, no one outside the upper ranks knew what the village elders' reaction had been.
But Gojo noticed something else instead.
These days, it had become strangely rare to see shinobi in green flak jackets on the streets. Other than the patrols that still moved at night, even the afterimages darting across rooftops had grown scarce.
Clearly, Konoha's high-level ninja had all been dispatched.
As for what they had been sent to do, Gojo Yoru did not know for certain.
But some things hardly needed to be spoken aloud.
They were either already out on missions or stationed at the borders.
The destruction of the Land of Whirlpools was nothing less than a countdown to war. The four great nations had once expanded by preying on weaker countries like vultures. Now they had also seized the thousand-year inheritance of the Uzumaki clan, and their strength had only grown more frightening. They would not stop. They would only become bolder.
All it would take now was a single spark to set the entire shinobi world ablaze.
And as the Uzumaki clan crumbled into history's dust, the person Gojo Yoru had waited years for finally arrived in Konoha.
Starting the very next day, he stopped sending shadow clones to the academy and began attending in person, whether for academic classes or practical training. He waited for that figure to appear.
He waited, and waited, and that wait stretched on until the second semester began in September.
Clearly, the destruction of the Land of Whirlpools had dealt Kushina Uzumaki a devastating blow.
If not for the comfort and support of the legendary clanswoman Mito Uzumaki, Kushina might have walked the same road Sasuke Uchiha would in the future—living on hatred, becoming a creature shaped by vengeance.
But Kushina Uzumaki, still straightforward and innocent, had no idea that she was being softened by "love" and molded into a vessel by the village's upper echelons.
If no one pulled her out of that fire, then once Mito Uzumaki—her shield and protector—died, Kushina's future would be one of surveillance and confinement.
The range in which she could move would always be fixed, always watched.
Only when the village faced a crisis and needed to bring out the power of its jinchuriki would Kushina Uzumaki be permitted to leave Konoha.
"Tsk. So it really was a conspiracy," Gojo muttered. "Politicians truly are all black-hearted."
Sitting on the edge of a cliff atop Hokage Rock, he looked down at the beautiful village below with a mocking gaze.
At that moment, Gojo Yoru finally understood something of what it meant to be a jinchuriki.
No wonder so many jinchuriki in the future turned twisted. No wonder even the younger brothers of the Five Kage could never truly become part of their own villages.
The methods used by the village's upper ranks were simply too extreme. Anyone placed in that cage would eventually grow cold.
Gojo Yoru had already found it strange that Konoha of this era did not yet have the visible barrier systems seen in later generations. He had assumed they had not been developed yet, or perhaps had not been obtained.
But to his surprise, Konoha's barrier had actually appeared because of Kushina Uzumaki.
Though it did not yet cover the entire village, Gojo—who frequently used space-time abilities to slip out of Konoha—now had eyes that almost resembled the Hyuga clan's Byakugan. From where he sat, he could make out a whirlpool-shaped barrier cloaking the central district of the village.
He recognized that barrier at once.
It was the same barrier Konoha used to monitor Kushina Uzumaki in the Minato one-shot.
He had not expected it to appear this early.
That was why his sigh carried such irony.
The episode in the original story where Kushina Uzumaki was kidnapped by Cloud ninja and rescued by Namikaze Minato had always drawn criticism and endless conspiracy theories.
Why? Because the Nine-Tails jinchuriki had supposedly been abducted with absurd ease. The Cloud shinobi had entered, seized Kushina, and even had time to flee on foot toward the border. Throughout the entire process, the huge residence she stayed in had seemed bizarrely deserted. The enemy located her with impossible precision and slipped away without being discovered by patrols. There was no sign of ANBU protection, no obvious surveillance, no barrier doing its job.
And then, in the end, only Minato—who just happened to be wandering outside that night—followed the trail Kushina had left behind and rescued her.
The heroine was saved by a hero. Her heart softened. Her bond with Konoha deepened. She became willing to remain in the village.
Looking back on it now, it truly did smell like a scheme engineered from above.
And the method was exactly the same as the one Hiruzen Sarutobi would use later, when he let Mizuki play the villain at the start of Naruto's story in order to deepen the bond between Iruka Umino and Naruto Uzumaki.
The one behind the curtain had most likely been the Third Hokage himself.
For Gojo Yoru, the discovery was ironic—but it was also a complete relief.
Minato Namikaze had been able to become a piece in that game because he possessed affection for Kushina Uzumaki, frightening talent of his own, and the status of being Jiraiya's disciple.
Now, with Orochimaru's investment behind him, Gojo Yoru—just as talented in his own way—also possessed the qualifications to become that chosen piece.
He had spent years laying the groundwork. He had carefully shaped himself into a distant, unsociable existence. If he and Uzumaki Kushina were to grow close, if they were to become one another's salvation, then Hiruzen Sarutobi would likely be even happier to see that outcome than he had been in Minato's case.
Everything had already been arranged.
Now all that remained was to act.
"It's all in place," Gojo Yoru said softly, a faint smile curving his lips. "Time to put on a show."
He rose from the edge of the cliff.
And in the next instant, his figure vanished without a trace.