The silver-haired girl curled her body, crossing her arms in front. The exposed skin visibly turned black, like a metal layer.
The subsequent Chakra Cannons and kunai from the knight puppets hit her, producing metallic clangs but causing no harm.
Thud!
Her legs landed. The silver-haired girl landed amidst numerous puppets.
Anrokuzan controlled the puppets to swing their weapons, attacking the girl in the center.
But she half-crouched on the ground, left hand propped on the earth, right fist raised, then slammed it down.
Rumble!!!
With deafening thunder, the ground cracked with web-like fissures, then collapsed into a pit several meters deep.
The violent force scattered, blowing away the charging puppets. Even Anrokuzan, controlling from afar, was blown away.
In the dust.
The mechanical bird suddenly flew out, crashing into Anrokuzan, sending him flying like a cannonball, slamming hard into a distant tower.
Gin bent her legs, pushed off.
The ground instantly cracked. She shot into the air like a cannonball, heading straight for the man embedded in the tower wall.
"Don't mess with me!"
Anrokuzan roared, his body glowing with purple Chakra.
The cracks from the impact rapidly healed, then suddenly expanded, tearing his clothes, transforming into a giant mantis puppet.
But before he could act, Gin's fist arrived. The violent force sent the mantis puppet crashing through the wall, into the interior, then out the other side.
Ryuji, piloting the mechanical bird, happened to fly from the other side. The six-barrel Gatling extending from its mouth gathered scorching Chakra.
"Goodbye!"
Ryuji waved at the flying mantis. An orange fireball the size of a basketball shot out.
Boom!
The fireball collided with the mantis mid-air, blooming into an energy sphere dozens of meters in diameter, then contracted and exploded.
Boom!
Flames shot into the sky. Scorching heat waves rolled, sweeping in all directions.
"Is he dead?"
Sara, holding Ryuji's shoulder, stood up, watching the brilliant fireworks.
But Ryuji's expression was grave, staring at subtle spatial fluctuations.
Anrokuzan was Sunagakure's Missing-nin, 'Mukade', who had traveled through the Dragon Vein from over twenty years in the future.
According to the original plot, he would self-destruct, causing the Dragon Vein to go berserk, leading the Fourth Hokage to add another layer of space-time attribute seal over Roran's original seal.
But now, Anrokuzan was dead.
The Dragon Vein wouldn't go berserk. The Fourth Hokage and others wouldn't detect Anrokuzan's plot to investigate, nor add another seal.
Thus, no time-travel.
But Anrokuzan had already traveled through.
A temporal contradiction had arisen. Correction must occur, or the world would split, creating a parallel timeline.
"It's here."
Spatial fluctuations suddenly intensified, then abruptly calmed.
The surroundings changed.
Still in Roran, but he wasn't in the previous location. Sara was also missing.
Night turned to day. The sky was filled with released balloons. The Roran's citizens who should have collapsed were still singing and dancing on the ground.
At least, it seemed so. Ryuji couldn't be certain.
The uncertainty arose because a new set of memories flooded his mind. Before him, a constantly rotating, compressed Chakra Sphere was heading straight for his face.
And the person holding the sphere was a spirited, yellow-haired youth in orange tracksuit.
'What the hell!?'
The sudden change made Ryuji instinctively want to curse, but experience from long-term mission execution as a Shinobi suppressed the impulse.
Dodging or defending with technique was too late.
But the metal pieces on his temples extended outward. These exoskeleton armor components, in that critical moment, formed a thin, transparent visor.
"Rasengan!"
With a full-powered shout, the Chakra Sphere hit Ryuji's face.
Bang!
Ryuji spun through the air, crashing into a distant tower.
Amidst the dust, through the hole, he saw the mechanical bird crash into Naruto, but had no thoughts about it.
He lay on his back in the rubble pile, staring blankly at the ceiling.
To find energy for the Mechanical City, a Sunagakure's Shinobi named Senki Ryuji came to Roran.
Then, just as he was about to kidnap the Queen of Roran to seize the Dragon Vein, time-traveling Konoha's Shinobi obstructed his actions.
Due to desire for the Uzumaki physique, the Nine-Tails, and Asura's Chakra, Ryuji temporarily abandoned the queen, turning to fight the time-traveling Konoha's Shinobi.
Then, just as victory was near, more Konoha's Shinobi appeared.
Ryuji, in one against five, gave Naruto an opening. Rasengan to the face.
"The Konoha's investigation squad and Naruto arrived in Roran earlier. Is this the development trajectory after temporal correction?" Ryuji pushed himself up. The shattered visor fell in pieces.
He removed a remaining fragment, walked to the hole in the wall, and looked outside.
Naruto and Namikaze Minato's group were gone. The mechanical bird was pursued by knight puppets, once again engaging in ace aerial combat among Roran's towers.
"This is probably the worst scenario."
Ryuji most hoped for world division, developing a parallel timeline.
That would completely separate from the original Naruto World.
But temporal correction was also acceptable.
However, the development trajectory after correction could have many options, like Mukade never time-traveling.
But it ended up starting with a Rasengan to the face... With Ryuji's reflexes and exoskeleton enhancement, he could have dodged.
But abruptly switching to that situation, he could only take it head-on.
Why did it develop this way?
Did this world want to kill him for causing temporal contradiction, or was the world's darling 'Naruto' favored?
Ryuji didn't know, but he knew, no matter what happened, his goals remained unchanged.
Seize the Dragon Vein, test if the world revolves around Naruto.
"I'm now treated as the villain. Whether Konoha or Mukade, they'll target me. Obtaining the Dragon Vein will be difficult."
Aside from Naruto and Minato's group, just dealing with Mukade alone would be hard.
Previously, Ryuji easily dealt with him because he had sealed the Dragon Vein beforehand.
If the Dragon Vein weren't sealed, this guy would have infinite Chakra, infinite regeneration, greatly enhanced puppet technique power… becoming very troublesome.
"In the corrected timeline, I never saw the sealing array or its closing process. Naturally, I didn't initiate analysis through Aka's body at the Observation Device. I need to go back and initiate analysis first."
"As long as I deduce how to use the seal, I can completely control the Dragon Vein."
Ryuji quickly decided, swapping bodies with Aka again to go to the workshop and initiate analysis of the sealing array.