Land of Moon. The command tent of Konoha's forward camp.
"You've all done extremely well."
Natsuki looked over the five of them — Might Duy, Might Guy, Uchiha Shisui, Yuhi Kurenai, and Shizune.
It was July now.
In a little over three months, the squad had completed more than thirty missions, none of them below B-rank. All four of the younger shinobi had performed far above expectations.
Shisui most of all.
The boy wasn't improving so much as accelerating. He'd graduated with a single-tomoe Sharingan. He now had a fully matured three-tomoe.
Absurd — but not inexplicable.
Shisui simply felt things more intensely than most people did. He loved this village, and he loved the people fighting beside him, and the Sharingan had never asked for anything more than that.
The original timeline had never pinned down exactly when he awakened the Mangekyo, but the Third Great Ninja War was the overwhelmingly likely answer.
Genius simply didn't play fair. Uchiha genius least of all.
On top of that, exactly as he had in the original timeline, Shisui had developed the Phantom Body Flicker.
It was a fusion of genjutsu and the Body Flicker — the Sharingan splitting him into a cluster of afterimages that attacked in concert with the real body. The dangerous part was that the phantoms didn't dissipate when struck. An opponent could hit one, feel the contact, and still have no idea which of them was actually Shisui.
He'd also picked up Observation Haki and Paper Art, both by his own choice.
Soru, Tempest Kick, and Geppo all demanded a certain baseline of raw physical conditioning that he simply didn't have yet. Paper Art asked for nothing of the kind — it evaded by reading the shifts in air pressure an incoming attack pushed ahead of itself.
Give that to a boy who already had the Sharingan, and you'd handed a wolf a second set of teeth. Observation Haki compounded the problem further.
Functionally, Shisui now fought with the Sharingan and the Byakugan at the same time.
"Go get some rest," Natsuki said, smiling. "I'll send for you when something comes up."
Once Duy and the others had filed out, he picked up the next document.
This one concerned Minato's squad.
Over the same three months, Minato had run Hatake Kakashi, Uchiha Obito, and Nohara Rin through a long string of missions of their own. Two of those had gone badly wrong — enemies neither the intelligence nor the terrain had accounted for.
Both times, everyone had come home. Once because Minato reacted fast enough to pull all three students out with the Flying Thunder God. The second time because Hatake Sakumo's squad reached them first.
And both of those "surprises" traced straight back to Uchiha Madara and Black Zetsu.
Natsuki had examined the Cloud shinobi corpses afterward and found the residue of Sharingan control on them.
He'd expected this from the beginning, so the confirmation didn't move him much.
But nothing goes wrong twice without going wrong a third time, and the third attempt would be heavier than either of the first two. Minato's squad might not survive it.
Fortunately, Natsuki already had his answer.
Orochimaru had successfully cloned the White Zetsu last week.
The only reason Madara and Black Zetsu could keep a finger on everything happening in this war was White Zetsu. Replace enough of them, and Natsuki would be reading their intentions before Minato's squad ever walked into the trap.
And not only Minato's squad. Yahiko's people too.
When the moment was right, he'd turn the whole apparatus around on them and put both Madara and Black Zetsu in the ground.
Natsuki checked the time, stood, and tore open a rift.
He came out inside Konoha's research complex.
Three White Zetsu were standing in Orochimaru's laboratory when he walked in.
Three in a week?
It sounded like nothing. It was, in reality, a terrifying rate of production.
Cloning White Zetsu was not a simple procedure. The things weren't ordinary organisms — they were human beings mutated by the Infinite Tsukuyomi, with Hashirama's cells layered in afterward by Madara himself.
But pure cloning wasn't the only route. There was a second method: clone-and-modify, taking captured White Zetsu as the base material and reworking them from there. It cut the cost enormously.
"Sensei," Natsuki said.
"Take them and go." Orochimaru waved a hand without looking up.
Natsuki knew better than to make conversation. He took the three back to the forward camp, parked them in the command tent, and walked over to Kushina's.
"Natsuki!"
She was up and across the tent with her arms around him before he'd fully stepped inside. Three months of sitting in camp with nothing to do will do that to a person.
"I've got a mission for you." He patted her head.
"What mission?" Kushina looked up, immediately alert.
"Use the Nine-Tails' Malice Sensing," Natsuki said. "Find out whether anything's watching this camp."
"Easy!"
He'd briefed her on this months ago. And now that she and the Nine-Tails were on genuinely good terms, she'd picked up Malice Sensing quickly.
Kushina closed her eyes.
A moment later she made a small, puzzled noise.
"I've got five of them." She frowned. "But they don't feel... human?"
"That's because they aren't." Natsuki touched his lips to her forehead. "Take me to them. Three will be enough."
"Mm!" Kushina was practically vibrating. "Piece of cake."
After so long stuck in a tent, she finally had something only she could do.
"This is a White Zetsu," Natsuki said, once they were back in the command tent, and gave her a brief account of what they were.
The version he gave her omitted how he knew any of it. As far as Kushina was told: someone was using these things to watch Konoha, he'd captured one, Orochimaru had cloned it, and now they were going to swap the copies in and trace the surveillance back to its source.
That only made her more enthusiastic.
The mission mattered. And in the entire village, she was the only one who could carry it out. That she got to do it for Natsuki was the best part.
The rest was almost procedural.
Once Kushina pinned down a location, Natsuki sank into the earth with Earth Style, surfaced directly in front of the target, and took it with the Mangekyo Sharingan.
Three times over, three White Zetsu.
He stripped their memories out wholesale, fed them into the three clones until the copies could recite them cold, and sent the clones back to stand exactly where the originals had.
The originals went to Orochimaru.
A week later, three more clones came back — and with them, all five of the White Zetsu watching the camp had been quietly replaced.
Five was nowhere near enough, of course.
Beyond this camp, the things were everywhere. It was no exaggeration to say the Land of Moon was infested — Konoha's sector and Kumogakure's alike. That was the only way Madara and Black Zetsu could track two armies in real time.
Now that infestation belonged to Natsuki instead.
He deliberately left a portion of them untouched. A blend of real and false was far harder to detect than a wholesale replacement.
Not that detection was likely in the first place.
Pulling this off had required two things: Orochimaru successfully cloning a White Zetsu, and Kushina being able to locate them. Neither of those sat anywhere inside Madara's or Black Zetsu's expectations, and neither of them would ever think to look in that direction.
August 1st.
After breakfast, Natsuki summoned Minato's squad and Duy's squad together.
"I have an important mission for both of you," he said, and unrolled a map of the Land of Moon.
The eastern half of the sheet was Kumogakure's territory.
"This afternoon, a Cloud supply convoy passes through here." Natsuki set a finger on the map. "Destroy the supplies or bring them back. Either works."
Minato studied the spot.
It sat well inside Kumogakure's ground. Barring a miracle, they'd be running into Cloud shinobi long before they reached the convoy.
Which explained why two squads were going instead of one.
"Understood. Wait for the good news." Minato took the map, smiling.
"Mm."
Once they'd gone, Natsuki settled into his chair and waited.
Time passed slowly.
An hour later, a White Zetsu rose out of the ground beside him.
"Lord Natsuki. A Cloud unit is moving toward the target location — nine Jonin, under Dodai."
"They really are investing in this," Natsuki said, and couldn't help smiling.
They nominally meant Kumogakure. In practice it meant Madara and Black Zetsu. Either they'd taken control of Dodai outright, or they'd simply fed him Minato's position and let him do what he'd do anyway.
Guy, Shizune, Kurenai, and Shisui were all Natsuki's students. If Kumogakure knew where they'd be, no force in the world would keep them from taking the shot. Killing them would wound him, and it would count as vengeance for the Third Raikage.
Natsuki waved the White Zetsu away.
He walked out of the tent and called Minazuki.
Just in case, he intended to watch this one from the sky.
Duy and the others had already reached the ambush point.
"Wait here a second."
With no sign of the convoy yet, Minato slipped forward alone and carved a Flying Thunder God seal into a boulder at the roadside, then withdrew.
He'd considered laying traps and decided against it. A convoy this important would have sensors attached, and a discovered trap would cost them more than an undiscovered one would gain.
"The moment they're in range, we hit them," he said quietly.
Duy and the rest nodded.
Half an hour later, the convoy came into view.
Three squads. Twelve shinobi.
"Go."
Minato vanished where he stood.
He reappeared at the roadside and put a kunai in the air in the same motion.
"Ene—agh!"
The sensor got half a word out before the blade reached him. Minato arrived a heartbeat behind it and kicked without breaking stride.
Tempest Kick!
The vacuum blade punched clean through the man's chest. He screamed once and dropped.
That was the horror of the Flying Thunder God. Ordinary shinobi didn't get to react.
"Enemy attack!" a Cloud Jonin finally managed, hands already flying through seals.
Lightning Style: Thunderbolt!
Two spheres of lightning tore across the road at Minato.
Thunder cracked overhead a half-second later, and two bolts fell out of a clear sky to meet them precisely.
The Jonin's head snapped around and found Hatake Kakashi.
Kakashi had called that lightning down with the Lightning Fang blades Natsuki had given him.
Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!
Shisui picked out a Jonin of his own and spat a fireball the size of a cart.
The man Body Flickered clear of it and, the instant he re-formed, hurled a fistful of kunai.
Shisui's expression didn't shift. He answered with a barrage of his own, thrown thicker and faster.
The Cloud Jonin's pupils contracted.
Every kunai he'd thrown had been knocked out of the air — and a good number of Shisui's were still coming.
Throwing like that, from a boy that age, genuinely rattled him.
He evaded again, snatched up a ninja sword, and charged. Halfway in, lightning crawled over his skin and his speed jumped another tier.
Lightning Style Chakra Mode proper belonged to the Raikage line alone, but every Cloud Jonin learned some approximation — lightning chakra driven through the body to fire the cells and force more out of them.
Shisui's eyes widened, three tomoe spinning up.
He read the man's line of attack before the man had finished committing to it.
Phantom Body Flicker!
Shisui's outline blurred.
Six duplicates unfolded around him. Seven Shisui met the charge at once.
"What—"
The Jonin's vision smeared and then he was surrounded, and worse, every one of them was staring at him with a matured Sharingan. He couldn't afford to look directly at any of them.
Everyone knew what happened to people who met an Uchiha's eyes.
"Which one is real?"
He gritted his teeth and swung at the nearest.
Clang.
Steel met steel, and his heart leapt. That was the body. It had to be — phantoms didn't block.
Another Shisui came in at him from the side.
He stepped through the arc, slipping the blade, and lightning ran the length of his sword as he drove it forward into the Shisui in front of him.
The blade passed straight through.
No blood.
He froze for a fraction of a second.
That was all it took. The real Shisui was already behind him, and one clean stroke sent his head rolling into the dust.
Shisui sheathed the sword and took stock.
Twelve against nine, and more than half of the Cloud unit was already dead or down. The ambush had done exactly what an ambush was supposed to do.
The highest count, predictably, belonged to Minato.
Shisui was turning toward the next fight when something cold went down his spine.
He reached for Observation Haki on instinct.
Dodai's group lit up in his awareness immediately, still some distance out and closing fast.
"Look out!" Shisui shouted. "Nine more Cloud Jonin incoming!"
The words were barely out before the ninjutsu arrived.
Minato saw a sphere of rubber sailing toward him and his expression tightened.
Lava Style: Rubber Ball — Dodai's.
Lava Style came in two flavors in this world. Roshi's, out of Iwagakure, came out as molten rock. Dodai's, out of Kumogakure, came out as rubber.
Why is Dodai here? And with that many Jonin behind him?
Minato worked the question over while his body was already moving. If that ball landed, it would wrap him and hold him, and he'd be a stationary target for however long it took him to tear free.
In a narrow sense, Dodai's Lava Style was a hard counter to him.
Assuming it ever connected.
"Fall back!" Minato ordered the instant he rematerialized.
With Dodai's group added in, the exchange had inverted completely. Jonin under Dodai's command were not ordinary Jonin — and Dodai himself had served as the right hand of two consecutive Raikages.
But disengaging was easier said than done.
Dodai locked onto Minato the moment he arrived and refused to let go. The other eight linked up with the surviving convoy shinobi and closed a ring around Duy, Shisui, and the rest.
"Eight Gates!" Duy barked.
"Eight Inner Gates!" Guy roared. "Gate of Pain — open!"
Straight to the fourth.
"Tempest Kick!"
Guy blurred forward and materialized in front of a Cloud shinobi who very plainly had not expected him to be there. Seeing the leg come up, the man kicked out to meet it.
Blood sprayed across the road.
The vacuum blade took his right leg off at the thigh, and he went down screaming.
Shizune's hand came up and three poison needles crossed the gap. The screaming stopped.
Nearby, another Cloud Jonin frowned and started into a seal sequence — and found himself ringed by more than a dozen Uchiha Shisui.
He reacted fast, scattering ninja tools in every direction.
They struck a few of the figures and passed straight through.
"Genjutsu?"
Then he grew considerably more confused, because all dozen of them came at him at once — and the attacks landed. He gave up on seals entirely and fought simply to stay alive.
"Eight Inner Gates!" Duy's voice carried over the whole road. "Gate of Wonder — open!"
Seven gates, all of them.
Blue chakra boiled off him in a column. Dust lifted in a ring with Duy at its center, and half the battlefield turned to look.
"Minato — get clear!"
Duy's eyes were fixed on Dodai.
Dodai's chest tightened. Something in that stare belonged to a predator, not a man.
Minato took one look and understood exactly what was happening. He knew the Eight Gates in theory — but he had never once seen anyone open past the sixth.
The pressure alone was staggering.
He triggered the Flying Thunder God and put distance between himself and Dodai in the space of a blink.
"Morning Peacock!"
Duy left the ground and started throwing punches with both hands.
Past a certain speed his fists simply stopped existing, and what replaced them was fire — the air itself igniting against his knuckles, filling the sky.
Dodai's reflexes were not slow. The instant Duy told Minato to move, his hands were already through the seals.
Lava Style: Rubber Wall.
A thick elastic membrane snapped into place in front of him.
BOOM.
The wall came apart.
The punches went through into Dodai, and he stood rigid, pinned in place, unable to fall while the barrage lasted.
When Morning Peacock ended, he went straight over backward and didn't get up.
"That's impossible—"
Every Cloud shinobi on the road was staring.
In the original timeline, Might Duy had never used Morning Peacock at all.
But Natsuki's presence had rippled outward, and this time father and son had been recognized early, backed early, and given room to work.
They had built Morning Peacock together.