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Volume Twelve had ended, but for the Five Great Shinobi Villages, closing its final pages did not mean the work was over. Over the past several months, the manga had transformed from a strange story that appeared inside the Art Stores into one of the strangest sources of information the shinobi world had ever possessed.
Names that had never been known before appeared in its pages. Children, some of whom had not even been born yet, had their techniques and personalities revealed. Alliances and old wars were shown from different perspectives, and even the secrets of entire clans had begun to emerge into the open.
And so, on the night Volume Twelve came to an end, five offices were still lit.
…
Konohagakure:
Hiruzen sat behind his desk, with files piled in front of him that had not existed before the appearance of the Art Store. Homura sat to his right, Koharu to his left, while Danzō remained standing near the window, reading the latest report his men had gathered.
The file open in front of Hiruzen carried a simple title: Confirmed Information from the Published Volumes.
"Twelve volumes."
Homura looked at the stack of reports.
"And every volume makes the future more complicated."
Hiruzen did not raise his eyes.
"Rather, it makes our ignorance of it more obvious."
He turned the first page. There were names that had become extremely familiar to them by now: Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi, Neji, Hinata, Shikamaru, Gaara, Temari, Kankurō… an entire generation of shinobi living in an era they had not yet reached.
But Hiruzen's attention was not focused on the children alone. He placed a finger over one name written in a separate section of the report: Uchiha Sasuke.
"Almost the last remaining member of the Uchiha."
Koharu spoke quietly.
"That alone tells us something enormous will happen to the clan."
Hiruzen looked up.
"And it also tells us that we still do not know what."
Danzō closed the report in his hand.
"We know enough to understand that the Uchiha's future is a problem."
Hiruzen looked directly at him.
"No."
Silence filled the room for a moment before he continued.
"We know that the Uchiha's future contains a problem. Do not turn the result we saw into an excuse to judge people who have not done anything yet."
Danzō did not answer, and Hiruzen returned to the file. There was also the Nine-Tails, a child carrying the beast inside his body, treated within the village in a way that had left even Kushina unable to understand how Konoha had allowed it to happen.
Then came the Hyūga Clan. The seal, the Main and Branch Families, Hizashi's death, and the agreement with Kumo. There was a great deal of information, but some of it concerned events that had not yet happened, while other parts had exposed problems that already existed in their present.
"The problem is no longer knowing the future."
Hiruzen finally spoke.
Homura raised an eyebrow.
"Then what is it?"
"Knowing what we should change now that we know it."
He lifted his eyes toward the men and woman before him.
"And what we should not touch."
This time, no one objected. They all understood the same danger. Every decision they made based on the manga might prevent a disaster… or create a future the pages had never shown them at all.
…
Sunagakure:
The report in front of the Third Kazekage was thicker than he had expected.
He sat behind his desk while several senior Sand shinobi stood before him. Copies of drawings and notes collected from all twelve volumes had been placed across the table.
At the top of one page were three names: Gaara, Temari, Kankurō.
The next page contained a far more important entry: The Future Kazekage — Identity Unknown.
"We still do not know who he is."
One of the advisors spoke.
"But we know he is interested in Gaara."
The Third Kazekage replied without looking up.
"Not Gaara alone."
He turned the page to the scene where that man had insisted on waiting for Sasuke's arrival.
"He specifically wanted the Uchiha and Gaara to face each other."
One of the shinobi frowned.
"For political reasons?"
"Perhaps."
The Kazekage partly closed the report.
"Or perhaps for a reason we do not possess yet."
It was the sentence he had been forced to use more often than any other since the manga first appeared. Every time they obtained a new piece of information, it seemed to open three more questions.
Still, there was at least one thing he knew about his village's future. The children of the Sand who had appeared in the Exams were not weak. Temari had demonstrated excellent analytical ability, and Kankurō had been careful to conceal his abilities.
But Gaara…
His finger stopped over an image of the red-haired boy.
Gaara was the real problem.
A beast inside him. Sand that moved to protect him without his command. A childhood that had shaped him into someone they still did not fully understand, and a strange connection between him and Naruto that the manga had begun laying the groundwork for long ago.
"Continue collecting every piece of information about him."
The Kazekage spoke.
"Gaara?"
"Gaara, and Uzumaki Naruto."
The advisor looked up in surprise.
The Third Kazekage added:
"Every time information about one appears, something makes the other more important. I want to know why."
…
Kumogakure:
The Third Raikage did not need a report to know which part of Volume Twelve had angered him the most.
He had known it from the moment he saw his village's name.
He sat behind his desk with his arms folded over his chest, while the report on the Hyūga incident lay open before him. An envoy from Kumo had attempted to abduct the Byakugan heiress, had been killed inside Konoha, and then his village had demanded Hyūga Hiashi's corpse to avoid war.
In the end, Hizashi had died in his place.
"Have we identified the envoy?"
"Not yet."
One of the shinobi answered immediately.
"And the Raikage ruling at the time?"
"The pages did not specify."
The Third Raikage's brows lowered.
He hated that. It was not only that he had watched his village commit something filthy, but that he had seen the result without knowing the men who had caused it or the circumstances that led them there.
"Then do not write in the reports that Kumo will do it."
The man before him lifted his head.
"Sir?"
"Write that the manga showed that it happened in its future."
The Raikage tapped a finger against the desk.
"There is a difference."
The men before him understood what he meant. The future they were watching was not an order handed down for them to carry out, nor was it an excuse to judge people in the present for decisions they had not yet made.
The Raikage then turned the page and stopped at another image. A blond child carrying the Nine-Tails stood before a Hyūga prodigy and defeated him in front of everyone.
"Uzumaki Naruto…"
He said the name slowly.
In Kumo's reports, the child of the future was no longer simply a jinchūriki. He was a fighter capable of using the Nine-Tails' chakra without fully releasing the beast, and someone who possessed a strange ability to change the people he faced.
"I want a separate file on him."
One of the men asked:
"Because of the Nine-Tails?"
The Third Raikage raised his eyes.
"If it were only because of the Nine-Tails, I would have ordered the file from his first appearance."
Then he pointed at the page.
"I want to know why this child keeps standing at the center of important events."
…
Iwagakure:
Ōnoki was not pleased.
That was nothing new to anyone in the office.
The old man sat behind his desk, reading the report for the third time, turning pages backward whenever he found a name he recognized or an event that could be connected to something in the present.
"Konoha."
He muttered with disdain.
"Always Konoha."
One of his advisors stood before him, trying to hide a smile.
"The story takes place there, Tsuchikage-sama."
"And that is the problem."
Ōnoki flipped the page with more force than necessary, then stopped at the information concerning the Chūnin Exams. Multiple villages inside Konoha, Sand shinobi, Sound shinobi, and new names appearing one after another.
"The Sound Village."
He spoke suddenly.
The advisor's expression changed.
It was not one of the Five Great Villages, but its presence in the events could not be ignored, especially with how much mystery surrounded its shinobi.
"Gather every appearance they have made since the start of the Exams."
"We already did."
A small file was placed before him.
Ōnoki opened it, read the first page, then looked up.
"That is all?"
"Everything the pages confirmed."
The old man sighed in irritation.
"Twelve volumes, and this manga still knows how to give us a question instead of an answer."
But despite his complaint, he did not close the file.
That was exactly why the villages kept reading.
Incomplete information could be more dangerous than having no information at all.
…
Kirigakure:
Unlike the offices of the other villages, the report placed before the Third Mizukage, Hōzuki Mizuro, did not begin with Volume Twelve.
It was far older.
Only a few words were written across its cover:
Land of Waves — Momochi Zabuza — Haku.
The Mizukage opened the file slowly. Ever since the manga had taken its readers beyond Konoha's walls for the first time, Kiri had received something most of the other villages had not been given so clearly.
A look at itself.
Not as it saw itself now…
but as the world would remember it in the future.
"Again."
The Mizukage spoke.
One of the advisors before him understood immediately.
"Momochi Zabuza. A shinobi of Kiri, and one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist in the future. He will later leave the village, become a missing-nin, and work as a mercenary."
His fingers stopped over the paper.
"And he will become known as the Demon of the Hidden Mist."
Mizuro's expression did not change.
"Continue."
"Haku. An Ice Release user from a bloodline that suffered persecution. Zabuza met him after he had been left alone, then took him in."
The advisor turned the page.
"And the information shown during that arc points toward a period in which Kiri's name will become associated with blood far more strongly than it is today."
Silence settled over the office.
None of this information was new to them.
That was exactly what made it heavier.
"At first, we believed Zabuza himself was the important piece of information."
Mizuro spoke.
One of the men lifted his eyes.
"And he is not?"
"He is important."
The Mizukage answered.
"But he is a result."
He pointed at the name written in the report.
"A child living in our village today will grow into one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, turn against his village, and leave it. That alone is worthy of investigation."
Then his finger moved to another name.
"And a child carrying a kekkei genkai will grow up in a world that fears people like him so much that he is left alone, only to find his one place beside a missing-nin."
Mizuro half-closed the file.
"If we focus only on those two men, we will learn nothing."
One of the advisors understood his meaning.
"We need to ask what made Kiri produce them."
"Exactly."
…
A second file was placed before him.
This one carried a different title:
Future Kirigakure.
Mizuro looked at it for a long moment.
"The other villages are reviewing what they learned from the latest volume. Konoha has its jinchūriki, the Hyūga, and the Uchiha. Suna has its children in the Exams. Kumo has the Hyūga incident."
He lifted the first file and placed it over the second.
"We received our warning before they did."
No one spoke.
"The manga did not simply tell us that Momochi Zabuza would become a missing-nin."
The Third Mizukage's tone grew heavier.
"It showed us the kind of village that man would come from."
The men around the table exchanged glances.
"That is an important distinction."
…
The Mizukage reopened the file at one of its older pages.
"Where is Zabuza now?"
The answer came immediately.
"Inside the village. He is still a child."
"And his father?"
"Genma is still with him."
The Mizukage nodded slowly.
That was what made the information so strange.
The man the future world would know as the Demon of the Hidden Mist…
was not a demon yet.
He was a child.
A child whose father could still place a hand on his head. A child who could learn, observe, and ask how someone trained in Silent Killing could fight an eye that saw everything.
One of the advisors spoke.
"Do you want him monitored?"
Mizuro raised his eyes toward him.
"Monitored for what?"
The man hesitated.
"Because he will become a missing-nin."
"He has not become anything yet."
Silence returned.
Mizuro continued:
"If we treat a child as a traitor because a book told us what he will become years from now, we may become the first step that pushes him toward that future."
He could no longer count how many times he had repeated those words. They had discussed this subject dozens of times already.
But this time, the Third Mizukage's lips seemed to move toward something different.
He tapped a finger against the file.
"Watch the village instead."
The men's expressions changed.
"The Seven Swordsmen. The Academy. The clans that carry bloodline abilities. The way we treat children we consider tools before they even become shinobi."
He paused.
"If Kiri's future is going to produce a demon…"
His eyes narrowed.
"…then I want to know when we began creating him."
…
Hōzuki Mizuro remained alone, staring at the report after the discussion ended.
Twelve volumes had been released so far, but to him, the most dangerous pages of the manga were not the ones that revealed Naruto's strength, Neji's defense, or Shikamaru's intelligence.
They were much older pages.
Pages that showed a man from Kiri standing on a distant bridge, carrying an enormous sword, his name known throughout the world as a demon.
"Momochi Zabuza…"
Then he looked out the window at the village that was still different from the Kiri the readers had seen in the future.
"The future told me what you will become."
His eyes remained on the mist for several moments.
"So the question is not what you will do…"
He placed his hand over the report labeled Future Kirigakure.
"…but what we will do to make you become that."
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 236: Heroes of the Manga!
Chapter 237: Episode 50 of the Anime!
Chapter 238: Volume Thirteen!
Chapter 239: From Young Gai's Perspective!
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