"Haven't you been getting missions a little too frequently lately?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow and gave Naruto a suspicious look.
Young Kakashi studied the SS-rank mission. "The real question is, what exactly does this mission mean?"
"Make the unburnable burn?" Young Obito racked his brain with what little wisdom he possessed. "It must mean we need the Fire Release our Uchiha Clan is so proud of, right?!!"
Sarada, Boruto, and the others obediently watched as the two Team 7s from the past, Team Kakashi and Team Minato, stared solemnly at the seemingly ordinary scroll.
Shikamaru Nara and Shikadai Nara, father and son, had no idea what a mission scroll was, but both felt that the mission could not possibly be that simple.
"An SS-rank mission. Could something like that really be so easy to complete?" Shikadai Nara asked. Truthfully, they had never even had the chance to take on a B-rank mission, much less heard of an SS-rank one.
His words seemed to remind Naruto, Obito, and the others of something.
Indeed, SS-rank missions on the mission scroll had always been exceedingly rare. Not only were they difficult to complete, they were sometimes dangerous as well.
Teenage Naruto, Teenage Sasuke, Young Kakashi, and Young Obito put their heads together to discuss what this SS-rank mission could mean.
Sakura and Rin handled Shikamaru Nara's questions, giving him a concise explanation of the mission scroll and everything that had happened in their parallel world.
Naruto and Obito occasionally joined in to add a few details, dramatically recounting one bizarre adventure after another.
Perhaps because everyone was around the same age, and because Naruto and Young Obito were both good at keeping the atmosphere lively, Sarada, Boruto, and the other children of their generation soon had countless questions of their own.
What had originally been intended as a meal at a burger restaurant to welcome the visitors from the past had instead turned into a question-and-answer session.
After Naruto answered all of Sarada's doubts, she felt much better. She also liked him even more and admired the Seventh Hokage all the more.
The same was even more true for little fans like Iwabee Yuino.
Hearing that Seventh Hokage-sama had once been a dead last who was also severely lopsided in his skills, especially toward the Transformation Technique, filled them with confidence about their own futures.
They firmly believed that as long as they worked hard enough and never gave up, they too could someday become someone as great as Seventh Hokage-sama.
"The most important thing right now is figuring out what this 'unburnable' thing actually is, right?"
Shikamaru Nara asked, "Are you sure this thing exists in our parallel world and not some other one? From what you said earlier, you only came here because the reward from your previous mission was a Flying Thunder God kunai that could take you near anyone's coordinates, right?"
Young Kakashi replied, "That should be right. Every mission we've received has been connected to the world we were in at the time. You just need to think carefully about what could possibly be unburnable."
"So tiny..."
Boruto stared at Young Kakashi.
Young Kakashi grew uncomfortable under his gaze. "What are you looking at?!"
Boruto burst out laughing. "It's just incredible seeing Grandpa Kakashi and Sasuke-san this young for the first time! Sasuke-san and I did go back to the past once while chasing Urashiki Ōtsutsuki, but by then the young Sasuke-san had already left Konoha."
Mitsuki said, "In the main timeline, Sasuke-sensei should have already defected from Konoha and gone to follow Orochimaru by then."
Although Sarada had learned from Sasuke of the mission scroll world that her father had once defected from Konoha, Naruto's reassurance and explanation kept her from dwelling on it or becoming too upset. If anything, finally understanding why it had happened gave her a sense of relief.
Young Kakashi, meanwhile, was considerably less pleased about being stared at by Boruto.
He had always been slender and slight, so standing there beside Boruto, he really did look a size smaller.
"Pfft. Grandpa Kakashi."
Young Obito burst out laughing.
As expected, Young Kakashi immediately shot him a cold glare. Young Obito obediently mimed zipping his mouth shut.
For some inexplicable reason, Adult Obito's habit of obeying Adult Kakashi without question seemed to have rubbed off on Young Obito and Young Kakashi as well.
Rin often happily remarked that the two of them were getting along better because of it.
Sakura seemed to understand something. She sighed and mentally lit a candle for Obito. Just look at Captain Yamato. Kakashi-sensei's PUA skills were no joke.
...
Just as they found themselves completely stuck on where to begin looking for the "unburnable," the Sixth Hokage, who was fishing in a river deep within a forest far outside the village, received a message from an ANBU.
"Hokage Advisor, please return to Konoha as soon as possible."
Kakashi immediately set down his fishing rod and stood. His previously lazy gaze turned sharp.
"Did something happen in Konoha?"
The ANBU had no idea how to explain it. Seeing Madara Uchiha and Obito Uchiha again had left him completely dazed.
Then he remembered that one of the people among them was supposedly the legendary Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
After two seconds of silence, he finally summarized it.
"The Fourth Shinobi World War..."
"Hm?"
Even at the mention of the Fourth Shinobi World War, Kakashi's expression remained unchanged.
But the ANBU's next sentence made his entire demeanor shift.
"All the war criminals from the Fourth Shinobi World War have appeared in Konoha."
"!!!"
After the initial shock, the only explanation Kakashi could think of was Edo Tensei!
He had no idea how anyone could summon Obito back from the Pure Land when even his ashes had been left behind in another dimension.
But the thought that someone might have brought Obito back to Konoha through Edo Tensei and forced him to attack the village, just as Orochimaru had once summoned the First and Second Hokage, was something Kakashi absolutely could not allow!
Before the ANBU could even react, Kakashi was already racing back toward Konoha at top speed.
But with Konoha still under emergency evacuation, he did not see a single person on the streets.
Naturally, there was no sign of the enemies, or the so-called war criminals from the Fourth Shinobi World War, either.
That only made Sixth Hokage Kakashi Hatake even more anxious.
He had not felt this tense since the incident when the moon nearly crashed into Earth.
He forced himself to calm down and think.
There was no way everyone in Konoha could have simply vanished. Judging by the shops all around him, which had been hastily closed without even being locked, the most likely answer was obvious.
The shelters!
The ANBU had only just caught up when the Sixth Hokage used another Body Flicker Technique and arrived at the shelter beneath the Hokage Rock.
Sure enough, Konoha's non-combatants and the Ninja Academy students were all there.
And there was also...
A grown man under protection, standing awkwardly with both hands raised in surrender while several kunai were pressed against his neck.
Ashura.
"Kakashi! Kakashi!" Ashura finally spotted someone familiar and hurriedly called out to him. "Is your battle over?! Hurry and explain things to them for me! If my brother comes out and sees them holding kunai to my neck, he's going to get angry again!!"
The Sixth Hokage stared blankly at the brown-haired young man in front of him.
That dazed, foolish expression almost made him mistake Ashura for his own number-one most unpredictable student.
"Sixth Hokage-sama, do you know this guy? He suddenly appeared here and claimed he came from over a thousand years ago."
Over a thousand years ago?
Suddenly appeared here?
"What's your name? Do I know you?"
Those two questions from the Sixth Hokage immediately made Ashura notice that this Kakashi Hatake had both eyes intact and no Sharingan.
"Ah! I get it! You're the Kakashi from this era!" Ashura, every bit as straightforward as Naruto, blurted out, "You haven't changed at all in fifteen years?! Even my dad can't stay young like this forever, can he?!"
To be fair, there was a reason Ashura had immediately assumed the man in front of him was the Kakashi who had come through the mission scroll just like him.
There really was very little difference between forty-six-year-old Kakashi and twenty-six-year-old Kakashi besides their clothes.
Besides, Obito kept plenty of clothes for both of them inside Kamui's Dimension, so changing outfits would hardly have been unusual.
Rumor had it there was plenty of nail polish in there too, though Kakashi stubbornly refused to wear any.
Seeing this foolish young man ramble incoherently in a way that reminded him far too much of Naruto in the old days, Sixth Hokage Kakashi decided to turn to the other ninja and ask the more important question first.
"Where's Naruto?"
"Seventh Hokage-sama seems to be fighting the intruder."
"Who's the intruder?"
"Well..."
The young ninja being questioned was even younger than Konohamaru. He had not participated in the Fourth Shinobi World War, so naturally he had never seen any of those so-called major war criminals.
Ashura answered for him. "Isshiki Ōtsutsuki! We originally wanted to help Grandmother deal with this enemy, but the Flying Thunder God unexpectedly carried us across time and space and dropped us into this parallel world, right in front of Isshiki Ōtsutsuki."
Ōtsutsuki!
The moment he heard that name, the Sixth Hokage's guard immediately rose another level.
"So what you're saying is that you came from over a thousand years ago. While pursuing Isshiki Ōtsutsuki, you accidentally ended up in our era, and now your brother and your friends are somewhere fighting the Isshiki Ōtsutsuki you mentioned. Is that right?"
"Mm-hmm!!" Ashura was nearly moved to tears by the Sixth Hokage's ability to understand him. "I can't believe you got all that so quickly! I spent forever explaining it to them earlier, and they couldn't understand what I was talking about at all."
"Well... that's because I have a student who's a lot like you," the Sixth Hokage said. "Never mind that. You still haven't told me who you are."
One of the Konoha ninja answered, "He says his name is Ashura, and that he has an older brother named Indra."
Ashura...
Indra...
Sixth Hokage Kakashi Hatake felt as though those two names sounded strangely familiar.
Over a thousand years ago...
"Wait!!"
His eyes widened as he stared at the young man before him, whose resemblance to Naruto was striking.
"The father you mentioned just now... could he possibly be...?"
Ashura scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "My father's name is Hagoromo Otsutsuki, but people in your era seem to call him Rikudō Sennin."
Sixth Hokage Kakashi fell silent.
The jaws of the Konoha ninja who had just been holding kunai against Ashura's neck nearly hit the floor.
"So... that means you're Naruto's and First Hokage-sama's..."
"Hahahahaha! It seems they're my chakra reincarnations. Sorry for causing all of you so much trouble because of the family issues between my brother and me. Hahahahaha!"