The last time Sasuke Uchiha met Kawaki, he had instinctively disliked him.
Now, that feeling was even stronger...
For some inexplicable reason, the guy just got on his nerves!
Sasuke even refused Boruto Uzumaki's offer to treat him. He walked straight to the counter, pulled his wallet from his ninja pouch, and ordered a burger with extra tomatoes, a regular Coke, and fries...
He had originally wanted ten times the usual amount of ketchup on his fries, but his pride got in the way, so he only held up three fingers.
Naruto followed him and asked, "What are you sulking about? I think Kawaki's a good guy. And Boruto is still my son in this parallel world and your student, you know." He turned around and explained things to the two of them on Sasuke's behalf.
Unlike Naruto, who could tell Sasuke was in a bad mood, Boruto Uzumaki wasn't offended in the slightest. If anything, he thought Sasuke-san had been ridiculously cool even as a kid.
Kawaki said nothing, but the casual look he gave Sasuke Uchiha left Sasuke with a strange feeling...
He couldn't quite put his finger on it. It seemed like hostility, but also like Kawaki simply didn't trust him.
Thinking back on his experience of the Fourth Shinobi World War, there had been Gaara, Shikamaru Nara, Neji Hyūga, Sai, and now Kawaki too.
Sasuke carried his tray over to a table and sat down in a huff.
Naruto ordered the burger he wanted and hurried after him. "Hey, hey, what are you mad about now?"
"I'm not mad."
"Then tell me! Aunt Mikoto and Itachi told me to take good care of you, dattebayo."
Sasuke sighed. Naruto was practically pressing himself against him, so Sasuke shoved him a little farther away.
"You're too close. Go collect your stamps, you twelve-year-old super idiot."
"Collect stamps?" Naruto didn't understand. He turned to Young Obito and Young Kakashi, who had just come over with their trays and sat beside them. "What does 'collect stamps' mean?"
"Uh..."
How were they supposed to explain that?
Young Sasuke and Young Obito seemed to understand what he meant, but neither knew how to explain it to Naruto.
Adult Kakashi, meanwhile, remembered the song Obito had sung at Akatsuki's New Year's party...
"The Tailed Beasts are nothing but a pond."
"Sasuke, Neji, Gaara, Sakura, Hinata, Yukie Fujikaze."
"A player at such a young age."
"A player, huh? That really is a fitting description."
"Kakashi-sensei, what does 'player' mean?"
"It means you're an idiot. A super idiot."
"Hey! You're insulting me again, idiot Sasuke!"
Boruto and the others walking nearby were equally astonished. Was this really how the Seventh Hokage-sama and Sasuke Uchiha used to interact?!!
By then, Sakura and Rin had already gotten along quite well with Sarada and Chōchō. The girls had recommended ordering dessert along with their meals, and when they came over carrying their food, they asked what everyone was talking about.
Young Obito quickly changed the subject, declaring that Sasuke was only irritated because Naruto had too many friends and he was jealous.
Naruto threw an arm around Sasuke's neck and announced that his friends were Sasuke's friends too. If everyone got along, they would naturally discover each other's good points.
"Besides, I think Kawaki and Boruto are both a lot like Sasuke," Naruto said.
Boruto looked at Kawaki. Kawaki looked at Sasuke. Sasuke looked at Boruto.
All three spoke at the same time.
"We're nothing alike!"
Since Kawaki had only recently joined Konoha, he had earned very little mission money. Even his pocket money came from the Seventh Hokage Naruto, who would give Kawaki a share whenever he gave allowances to Boruto and Himawari.
So although Kawaki had originally wanted to treat thirteen-year-old Naruto in Boruto's place, he found himself rather short on cash.
Denki Kaminarimon, however, was rich. He was the only son of a multinational conglomerate, and his allowance alone was enough to buy the entire restaurant. He immediately took the lead and bought Naruto a deluxe set.
The other kids quickly followed, each looking for a chance to treat the young Seventh Hokage and his companions. Before long, the pile of burgers at the children's table was much larger than the adults'.
It got to the point where the Sixth Hokage Kakashi had to remind them not to waste food.
The children gathered around one table, while the adults pushed several tables together.
Seeing Sasuke as a child again, the thirty-two-year-old Seventh Hokage Naruto could barely contain his delight. He practically wanted to hug him, kiss him, and lift him into the air. Not literally, of course, but he kept looking over with such fond affection that Uncle Sasuke beside him finally had to speak up in exasperation.
"What are you staring at, dead last?"
"Hahaha, nothing. I just really miss seeing Sasuke like this." Naruto scratched his head with his prosthetic arm and grinned foolishly. "At this point, Orochimaru probably hasn't put the Cursed Seal on you yet, right?"
Adult Kakashi had replaced his Coke with coffee. He casually told them that the Chūnin Exams in their world had already ended.
"It's just different from your world. Orochimaru wasn't capable of hurting Sasuke right under Minato-sensei and Itachi Uchiha's noses."
Especially if Orochimaru tried to hurt Sasuke under Itachi Uchiha's watch, or Naruto under Minato Namikaze's. He would have been torn into eight hundred pieces or sliced apart before he even knew what hit him.
The Sixth Hokage Kakashi said, "Yamato previously reported to Naruto and me that Orochimaru suddenly vanished for a while. Then when he came back, he started behaving strangely and even returned to his old appearance?"
"So he really ended up in your world. Orochimaru from our world and Orochimaru from the future were switched by a little toad. I never thought we'd get the chance to visit your future parallel world ourselves." Adult Obito crammed a large bite of burger into his mouth and spoke to the Sixth Hokage Kakashi with absolutely no concern for table manners.
"Who would've thought..."
Kannabi Bridge Minato briefly explained what had happened on their side to the Seventh Hokage Naruto and the others.
Adult Kakashi looked at the Sixth Hokage Kakashi and remarked that he genuinely couldn't imagine himself as Hokage.
"Well, you're looking at it now, aren't you? Other than sitting in the office all day working through an endless mountain of paperwork and occasionally reminiscing about the past, there really isn't much else to it. You guys, on the other hand, got to experience such an incredible Time Travel journey. It must have been quite an adventure."
Adult Kakashi calmly nodded to the Sixth Hokage. "It was. Even looking back on it now, it still feels unbelievable."
"I'm envious," the Sixth Hokage said sincerely.
From the moment he first saw Obito enter the burger restaurant wearing the same Konoha Jōnin uniform as the "Kakashi" beside him, the envy in his eyes had become impossible to completely hide.
That reminded Obito Uchiha of something Kakashi had told him not long ago.
If the Sixth Hokage from the main timeline ever learned what they had experienced, he would undoubtedly envy him.
He might not have the title of Hokage, and he might no longer be Team 7's instructor, but none of that mattered as much as having Minato-sensei's family, Rin, and Obito alive and well beside him.
Like the Sixth Hokage Kakashi, the thirty-two-year-old Uncle Sasuke and Uncle Naruto also felt something complicated when they heard about the experiences in the world of the mission scrolls.
Minato Namikaze, Kushina Uzumaki, and Jiraiya were all still alive.
The Uchiha Clan had never been wiped out after attempting a coup. Itachi Uchiha had returned to Konoha from Akatsuki and joined the ANBU, working alongside Shisui Uchiha, Obito Uchiha, and the others to change how Konoha's people viewed the Uchiha Clan.
After hearing all that, there was no way Naruto and Sasuke could feel nothing but surprise. Some envy was inevitable.
Especially for Sasuke. When he heard about Itachi and Shisui and remembered the older brother who had loved him until the very end, even the Coke in his mouth suddenly tasted bitter enough to make him want to cry.
Kaguya remained completely indifferent throughout.
As the only adult sitting at the girls' table, she ate her burger while her maidservant Aino carefully attended to her from behind.
Her two beautiful, pale hands, delicate enough to look harmless despite being capable of tearing a person apart, held an extra-large burger as she nibbled away at it in small bites.
She looked like a hamster, strangely dazed and adorable.
The girls had heard that she was carrying two babies. Since none of them had any idea just how terrifying Kaguya Ōtsutsuki had been during the Fourth Shinobi World War, they were especially attentive toward her and had even bought her an extra-large meal set, afraid that the pregnant Kaguya wouldn't get enough to eat.
Watching Kaguya expressionlessly devour the food in front of her, the Seventh Hokage Naruto Uzumaki swallowed.
"I never thought you'd even bring her with you, especially while she's pregnant with the old Sage of Six Paths."
Fortunately, even though her expression never changed, the burger seemed to suit her tastes.
It was just that appetite...
Wasn't it almost on par with Hinata's when she was pregnant with Boruto and Himawari?!!
Both had the Byakugan, and both had terrifying appetites.
Could Hinata's appetite actually be some kind of throwback inherited from the Rabbit Goddess?
"We didn't expect it either," Minato said with an awkward smile. "I suppose all we can say is that it was the will of the mission scroll."
"No matter what, I'm really glad I got to see you again, Dad."
The Seventh Hokage Naruto stopped eating and sincerely thanked Madara Uchiha, Obito Uchiha, and the Hokages of past generations.
"If none of you had shown up, Sasuke and I would've had to deal with Isshiki Ōtsutsuki without enough information. We definitely would've suffered for it."
Surprisingly, Madara Uchiha seemed quite fond of the pickles and salad dressing in his burger. He appeared to have a particular taste for sweet-and-sour foods with little crunchy bits in them.
When this man, who was currently slightly older than both Madara and Hashirama, thanked him, Madara merely gave a perfunctory nod.
Then he looked toward Naruto at the children's table.
"You've changed a lot."
Truthfully, if not for the voice and appearance, even Madara would have had trouble believing that the Seventh Hokage before him was Naruto all grown up.
Naruto and Sasuke didn't know how to answer.
They really had changed a great deal.
Only after seeing their younger selves again did they suddenly realize that they had changed so much they could barely recognize themselves anymore.
At the young shinobi's table, the topic turned to the mission scroll. Naruto suddenly remembered the mission he had just received and wanted to show it to his dad.
"SS-rank?"
The moment the adults heard the mission rank, almost everyone at their table stopped eating.
Young Naruto nodded.
"The biggest problem is the mission itself, dattebayo!"
He opened the mission scroll and asked, "What exactly is a 'non-combustible object'?"
"We talked about it forever earlier, but even adult Shikamaru said that possibility was too unlikely. It wouldn't justify an SS-rank mission."
A non-combustible object?!
Madara Uchiha thought: There's something even my Great Fire Annihilation Technique can't burn?
Young Sasuke glanced at Uncle Sasuke from this world. "And don't start wondering if there's something even your Amaterasu can't burn. If the mission were that simple, it wouldn't be SS-rank."
Uncle Sasuke replied, "I wasn't thinking that..."
Madara Uchiha: "..."
Indra: "..."
At the slightest movement, the two exchanged a glance and immediately knew the other had been thinking exactly that.
Just then, Minato Namikaze made a small movement of his own.
He gently patted the Seventh Hokage Naruto on the head.
"Dad?"
"Actually, I've been wondering about this for a while. It looks like there's something on your head..."