Deep within the Fire Country woods, hidden by brush and tree cover, sat a secluded cottage while it was raining.
Inside, the air was stale as Jasper was seen slouched on a decaying table, resting his chin on his folded hands.
"Yo, Sasori," he groaned, breaking the silence. "How much longer until she gets here?"
Sasori sat in the corner, fully encased in his Hiruko puppet shell. He grumbled to his partner, "Just wait."
Not too soon, the wooden door creaked open as Konan stepped inside. Her Akatsuki cloak hung still, repelling the faint drizzle outside. She then looked at the two of them with her usual detached gaze before informing them of the shifting political landscape.
The Leaf Village and the Sand Village were planning to host another Chūnin Exams.
Jasper, shaking off his sleepiness, had almost forgotten this event was going to take place. The second Chūnin Exams occurred during a filler arc, right before the narrative jumped forward a few months to Shippuden.
He also remembered that Kakashi originally met up with Konan during this time, unaware she was in disguise.
Whether the timeline played out the same way this time around didn't matter since Konan had just decided to approach them directly with the intel.
"I assume you want us to enter?" Sasori asked.
"No," she replied. "It's a trap to try and lure us from hiding. Pain wants you two to stay out of this country and the Wind Country entirely until the exams are over."
"Sounds fine with me," Jasper intoned.
He then leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms, having no desire to deal with the Leaf right now anyway.
Konan turned her attention slightly toward Sasori to ask, "How's your new partner been holding up?"
"Terrible… But not as stupid as the rest."
Jasper grinned. "I'll take that as a compliment."
Konan stared at Jasper for a moment without changing her expression. "I see…"
It wasn't long before she turned toward the door and vanished in a swirl of paper, leaving the two.
A while later, Jasper and Sasori packed their gear and left the cottage. They were soon seen walking down a muddy, rain-slicked trail to put distance between themselves and the Fire Country borders as the rain beat down on the leaves above.
"Say, Sasori."
"What is it…?"
"You said I wasn't as stupid as the rest of your partners."
"And?"
"We all know who they were," Jasper counted on his fingers. "First Orochimaru, then Deidara, then Arthur's clone, and now me."
"Your point?"
"Was Arthur's clone really that stupid?"
"No…" Sasori slowly answered.
"Oh, come on, Sasori! The least you could do is tell me what makes me so different than him."
Sasori stopped walking as his mechanical tail twitched in the mud. He considered Jasper for a moment. So far on their journey, his new partner had not proven to be a traitor. He was annoying, yes, but he followed orders and held his own during tasks.
"Fine, since you're so eager to know," Sasori said.
"Okay, but start from the beginning."
"What?!" the puppet snapped.
"I mean—"
"You got a lot of nerve trying to order me around," Sasori interrupted in a dangerous tone. "How 'bout you tell me about yourself first before I explain things? Like why you really left the Leaf."
Jasper let out a small scoff. He knew he had to try and earn Sasori's trust if they were going to operate as a functional cell. So he decided to lay his cards on the table and began telling his side of things.
Before joining the Akatsuki, Jasper had been wasting away in the Leaf Village. With no one making public claims that Arthur wasn't dead, and with Naruto suspended from his duties as an active ninja, Jasper found no reason to do anything productive.
The timeline was stagnant, and he was bored. He was also holding onto a massive secret: he was the literal reincarnation of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
Because of this, he felt untouchable, viewing the citizens in the village as playthings.
Using his gifted abilities, he decided to rape Sakura Haruno. That plan, unfortunately for him, did not pan out the way he wanted.
Jada Uchiha had always been monitoring the main characters closely, allowing her to catch Jasper in the act at an abandoned church. Had she even been a minute late, he would have gone through with it.
A fight broke out.
The pews were shattered as Jasper used his Purple Lightning technique to overwhelm her and gain the upper hand. Had Alice not intervened at the last second, sensing things at the church, something terrible would have surely happened to both Jada and Sakura.
Jasper was forced to stop. He couldn't afford to fight Alice, not when they were clearly dating.
By the end of the ordeal, Alice had to use her Yamanaka techniques to wipe Sakura's memories of the assault entirely. And while the trio kept the matter quiet from the Hokage to avoid a massive scandal, the damage was done. Jada no longer wanted to trust Jasper anymore.
Sasori listened to the story as the rain continued to fall.
"So you're into that kind of vice?" he asked.
"I was just trying to have a little fun."
"That's what they all say before it actually happens…"
He then turned his mechanical back on Jasper and started walking down the trail again. Jasper was left with no words. Even an S-rank missing-nin who turned people into puppets judged him.
He scowled and followed Sasori into the rain as he continued his story.
Back in the Leaf Village, the fallout from the church incident lingered. Because Jasper had tried to assault Sakura, Jada was left mentally strained. The betrayal messed with her head. She had fought to protect a girl from someone who was supposed to be from their own world.
Now she needed someone to talk to, but her options were non-existent.
Alice was Jasper's girlfriend at the time, making her impossible to confide in. Telling anyone else inside the village, like Kakashi or Tsunade, was a definitive mistake. It would cause far too much drama, trigger investigations, and completely fracture what they've been working toward.
The only two people left to turn to were the outsiders she communicated with: Itachi and Hoshikaze.
Arthur, who had been busy holding various secret meetings to build his new organization, heard Jada's cry for help and went to her as Hoshikaze.
They met away from the village, where Arthur listened to her recount the events in the church. As a Christian with principles, he knew exactly that Jasper was in the wrong. There was no grey area in his mind regarding what Jasper attempted to do.
So Arthur offered Jada genuine comfort by giving her advice on how to process the betrayal and cope with the stress of carrying the secret. He could have belittled her trauma, but that would have contradicted the nurturing of her into his side.
To further aid her, he offered to channel her anger into something productive: a training session.
She accepted as the two spent days out in the wilderness, sparring and refining her techniques.
The physical exertion helped clear her mind. Jada had undoubtedly grown stronger since the last time he trained her. For instance, her control over her Susanoo had grown, and she even managed to learn variants of the Lightning Blade.
Given more time, she would surely surpass Jasper.
When the training concluded, Jada returned to the Leaf Village with a clearer head.
Now Arthur was not focused on one person at a time; he had also learned much about Naruto's current progress.
Being locked down in the village had forced Naruto to look inward. He managed to get even closer to the Nine-Tails, going as far as being able to both summon and tame the creature at will.
Was Arthur disturbed by this massive leap in the protagonist's power? Not even remotely close.
Arthur was progressing at a terrifying rate himself. The gap between him and the rest of the world was still widening.
Around this time, he decided on perfecting the other elemental natures. He already had mastery over several, but he needed a stronger grasp on the lightning chakra nature to complement his arsenal.
His clones and servants were busy managing the Light Village and monitoring the Akatsuki. So, Arthur packed his gear, kept his Hoshikaze disguise intact, and traveled directly to the Cloud Village.
That village, as everyone knew, was the pinnacle of lightning manipulation. Just by observation with his Crimson Gaze, Arthur could learn the intricacies of nature far faster from its natural environment.
Now, he didn't break in. He walked through the front gates as a wandering mercenary after being deemed safe.
There, he spent time in their high-altitude training grounds. He also befriended a few of the locals, primarily the kunoichi named Samui. She took a great interest in the quiet, towering blindfolded man who learned techniques just by watching them.
Arthur casually absorbed the village's knowledge on chakra frequency and vibration—all while doing his best to maintain his own country.
Yet he could not stay in the mountains for long.
During his time in the Cloud, he was sent on a mission to help find Killer Bee. Jasper, which no one was aware of, had used his Tailed Beast Whisperer trait to manipulate the Eight-Tails and the Five-Tails into fighting one another.
When Arthur found the two Jinchūriki, he entered their spatial space to release them from their savagery.
But there was an anomaly he discovered that made his blood run cold: both the Eight-Tails and the Five-Tails knew his name and his real face.
The Tailed Beasts shouldn't have any concept of who Arthur was. He had never fought them directly, nor had he ever interacted with their hosts. The only logical explanation was that information from a different timeline had bled into their collective consciousness.
That could have also meant Jasper's temporal tampering had severely damaged the fabric of the original narrative—so Arthur believed—making the Tailed Beasts remember events that had not happened yet.
After saving them, Arthur left the Cloud Village. He had to get to the bottom of this immediately, and there was only really one way: to understand the mechanics of the Time Travel technique.
The only issue was that the technique was orchestrated from the Boruto series, something he had not read about. To gain information on it, he had to visit the only other Ōtsutsuki in this world: Toneri.