"Actually, before the seal on my memory was lifted, I never knew the Dragon Vein had the effect of traveling through time and space."
"No, even now, I still don't know how exactly Itachi managed to do it, or how it's supposed to be triggered."
Queen Sara spread out her hands, "I can only repeat what Itachi did during the window of time he chose, nothing more."
"And also…"
She closed her eyes and carefully sensed.
The Dragon Vein's recovery is a long process, usually taking several generations as one recovery cycle.
Last time, when Ryosuke and Obito fought, it caused the ground to split for hundreds of kilometers, and the Dragon Vein was nearly dried up.
It had only barely recovered a little until now, and then Itachi removed the seal and used up most of it again.
"The remaining Dragon Vein power is only enough for a single transmission."
"In the timeline that belongs to history, you'll have no identity, no reinforcements. You can only rely on yourself… have you decided?"
Ryosuke let out a light laugh.
"Thanks for worrying about me, but..."
He stepped into the central sealing formation, looked calmly into Queen Sara's eyes, full of open and steady confidence, "Leave it to me."
"Everything will be fine."
Queen Sara felt the strength coming from his gaze, and her heartbeat stumbled for half a beat.
Ever since her mother passed away, she had carried every burden since she was young. This was the first time someone had ever said such words to her.
Queen Sara took a deep breath.
"Then…"
"History, I'll leave it to you!"
The final power of the Dragon Vein was extracted, merged into the sealing formation, turning into a brilliant light that swallowed Ryosuke.
———
When the light faded, Ryosuke stood in the same sealing grounds.
But time and space were already different.
A cold moonbeam shone through the window, falling at his feet and also onto Queen Sara's red hair as she sat on a rock.
She wore black clothing, her red hair flowing freely down her back, her skin fair as jade, so fair that she didn't even look like a living person, nothing like the slightly tanned version of her in the future.
Naturally so.
Right now, she looked only seventeen or eighteen, a queen of a country, with no need to toil for survival.
"Who?!"
Sara, who had been softly humming a song under the moonlight, sensed a gaze. She leapt up high from the rock.
Her black robe flapped sharply in the wind, revealing two pale long legs, and when she landed…
There was suddenly a kunai in her hand?
Ryosuke recalled.
He didn't remember the future Queen Sara showing any signs of having trained in ninjutsu, nor did she have any chakra inside her body.
"Don't be nervous. I'm not the enemy," Ryosuke said.
"Breaking silently into a forbidden place, and you expect me to believe that?"
Sara raised her hand and threw the kunai. Two fingers went into her mouth as she let out a sharp whistle.
Then her hands quickly formed seals, and the next second...
"Fire Release, Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!"
Thirty to forty palm-sized fireballs shot messily from her mouth.
She wasn't just using ninjutsu.
The kunai she had thrown earlier circled around using the flames as cover, flying toward Ryosuke again.
Looking closely, one could see a thin thread tied to the end of the kunai.
Behind that thread, more shuriken were attached, spinning as they were dragged along.
And that still wasn't all.
"Caw! Caw!"
A crow flew in through the window, diving straight down, its sharp talons aiming for Ryosuke's back, further covering for the flames and shuriken.
Fire Release.
Shuriken techniques.
A crow.
And… this chained, interlocking tactical style.
Ryosuke glanced through the window above and looked at the tall buildings.
"Looks like you're having quite a bit of fun here… Itachi."
Seeing that Ryosuke didn't react at all, Sara, who had launched the first attack, ended up panicking.
She had trained ninjutsu for so long, but this was the first time she actually attacked a person.
Seeing she was about to hit him, she gritted her teeth and tugged the thread, shifting the kunai's aim from Ryosuke's chest and stomach toward his thigh.
This way it won't be fatal.
Ryosuke glanced at the new target. Previously not dodging at all, he still instinctively shifted his body slightly because, well, he was a man.
Buzz!
A gravitational barrier appeared, and whether it was Fire Release or shuriken, everything was bounced away.
As for the diving crow, Ryosuke waved his hand and caught it in his palm.
The crow squawked loudly, flapping wildly, but it couldn't escape Ryosuke's grip at all.
Ryosuke glanced at it, and the crow shuddered violently, freezing like a block of wood, not daring to move.
He looked at the crow first, then at the younger Sara, his brows slowly tightening.
"You… what exactly are you… 'thing' supposed to be?"
Sara's voice trembled slightly.
If Ryosuke had dodged with extreme speed or countered with ninjutsu, even if he looked overwhelmingly strong, she wouldn't be afraid.
But what Ryosuke showed was too strange.
In Sara's eyes, he did absolutely nothing, and the Phoenix Sage Fire and the kunai were just repelled out of nowhere. Even more frightening was… the look in his eyes.
Just that moment of eye contact made her feel like she was being dissected and analyzed.
'No!'
'It isn't an illusion!'
A finger gently tapped Sara's forehead.
Brilliant gold light flashed, ripple energy instantly flowing into her body, piercing through every cell.
Sharp pain surged through her, and along with the pain came an eerie, extreme…
Crawling sensation.
Sara looked down to see tiny "worms" wriggling beneath her skin and flesh.
Not just outside, her internal organs and bone marrow also had that creepy crawling feeling.
These "worms" gathered in her stomach, then crawled up her esophagus until they reached her throat, and then...
"Ugh!!" She retched violently.
Tens of thousands of white threads, long and short, spilled out of her mouth.
After hitting the ground, the threads twisted and wriggled wildly. Just looking at them was horrifying, and knowing they had been inside her own body made her want to keep vomiting.
"Don't open your mouth, they might crawl back in," Ryosuke warned.
Sara immediately clamped her hand over her mouth, forcing out words through clenched teeth,
"What… what are these? Why were they in my body… what did you do to me?!"
"White Zetsu cells. Looks like they were heavily modified."
Ryosuke flicked his finger. A golden-red flame fell from his fingertip, landing on the white threads and burning these disgusting creatures to ash.
"As for why they were in your body… you should know better than me, right? After all, "
Ryosuke jerked his chin toward the burned remains.
"It's those things that gave you the ability to form and use chakra."
Sara clenched her fists.
She had been too panicked earlier, and only now did she notice that she had lost the ability to control chakra. She could no longer use ninjutsu, and her physical strength had dropped several levels.
Her skin, originally so pale she didn't look alive, returned to a normal shade with a bit of healthy color.
She looked at her hands, dazed, "You mean…"
"The moon power that all the people of Roran received… was actually a pile of disgusting white worms?"
"All of Roran?"
Ryosuke was about to ask further when he suddenly caught a flash of gold in his peripheral vision.
A golden figure placed a hand on Sara's shoulder, and light flashed again as he tried to take her away.
Snap!
Star Platinum grabbed Namikaze Minato's wrist tightly.
Ryosuke said calmly, "I'm still talking to her, and you just take her away like that…"
"You're being a little rude."