Sasuke Uchiha arrived just in time.
"Sakura, Naruto?! What are you doing here?!!" Sasuke Uchiha shouted. "That Gaara is way beyond you two! Get out of here, now!!"
"Yare yare," Adult Kakashi said lazily as he stepped out from beneath the bushes where he'd been resting in the shade, followed by Sasuke. "This just got a little troublesome. The two Sasukes are about the same age. Good thing their clothes still make them easy to tell apart."
"Kakashi?!"
The Sasuke Uchiha dressed in a black bodysuit hadn't even figured out what Kakashi meant when another figure walked out behind him…another Sasuke Uchiha who looked exactly like him. The only difference was his outfit, the usual blue short-sleeved shirt and white shorts, and slightly shorter hair.
"What the hell?!"
...
At the same time, on the other side, Pakkun twitched his nose.
"That's weird… why do I smell two Sasuke Uchiha scents?"
Naruto Uzumaki blurted out, "No way?! Did Kakashi-sensei even teach him Shadow Clones?!"
Damn it! Kakashi-sensei is way too biased!! He already taught Sasuke Chidori, and now Shadow Clones too?! How am I ever supposed to catch up to him like this?!
"I don't know," Pakkun replied, "but over there, it's not just an extra Sasuke Uchiha scent. There's also another Kakashi scent, plus one of you and that pink-haired little girl."
"What? Sasuke used clones to turn into us?!"
"No," Shikamaru Nara said calmly. "If Sasuke used Shadow Clones to turn into you guys, the scent would still be Sasuke Uchiha's. Don't forget, the Shadow Clone Technique only splits your own chakra evenly. Turning into someone else would require the Transformation Technique, and transformation can't imitate scent."
"Yeah…" Sakura Haruno said, worry creeping into her voice. "Something really bad must have happened on Sasuke-kun's side."
Naruto Uzumaki didn't say a word. He simply doubled the team's speed again.
"Hey! Wait up!!" Shikamaru Nara complained as he was dragged along. "Don't run so fast!"
Then he muttered under his breath, "What a pain. Why do I have to be involved in this anyway…"
"Just hurry and keep up," Pakkun said. "Why do you sound so world-weary at such a young age?"
Shikamaru shot back, "Like your way of talking isn't just as world-weary?! You mutt!"
Thanks to their burst of speed, they soon caught up to Gaara's siblings and the visibly unsettled Sasuke Uchiha.
One Adult Kakashi.
Two Narutos.
Two Sakuras.
Two Sasukes.
One Shikamaru Nara.
One Pakkun.
And Shino Aburame, who had just arrived to lend support.
Faced with the sheer number of Konoha ninja, the Sand ninja Temari and Kankurō didn't dare act rashly.
Especially with a clearly formidable jōnin present, and a little girl who could send a Sound ninja chūnin flying with nothing but her bare fists.
"Huh?! Me?!" Sakura Haruno exclaimed as she immediately noticed the other Sakura.
Visually, the two Sakuras were easy to tell apart. The former, Sakura Haruno, had cut off her long hair in tears during her fight against Kin in the second stage of the Chūnin Exams, leaving her pink hair at a medium-short length.
The latter, Sakura from the parallel mission scroll world, had undergone intense training while competing back and forth between Minato's team and Kakashi's team. She had developed her monstrous strength much earlier alongside Rin. As a result, not only had she not fallen behind against Kin, she had even ripped off Kin's long hair and kept it as a trophy from her first real victory.
Naruto Uzumaki arrived on the scene, completely dumbfounded.
"Huh?! Two Sakuras?!! And two Sasukes, plus another me? Are you seriously telling me these aren't Shadow Clones or Transformation Technique?"
The difference between Sasuke Uchiha and Sasuke was easy to spot. One wore a full black bodysuit and had long hair, while the other was dressed neatly in a blue short-sleeved shirt and white shorts, his hair cut short.
Telling Naruto Uzumaki apart from Naruto wasn't quite as obvious, but it was still something you could recognize at a glance.
Naruto from the mission scroll world had been staying at Kakashi's old house during this time. He hadn't had any chances to eat instant noodles and was constantly reminded by Minato Namikaze to eat his vegetables. With his dad personally helping him train, his progress had also become much more efficient.
All in all, even though the two Narutos were dressed exactly the same, the one from the mission scroll world looked taller and more energetic than Naruto Uzumaki. The baby fat on his face had faded a little, and there was already a faint trace of the handsome, heroic look he would have during the Fourth Shinobi World War.
That change made Sakura Haruno from this world glance at him a few extra times without realizing it.
Sasuke Uchiha, clad in a black bodysuit, stared at the Sasuke in the blue top and white shorts and let out a mocking laugh.
"If you're going to impersonate me, at least change your clothes. You probably didn't expect I've been training Chidori with Kakashi all this time—and haven't even had time to cut my hair."
For a moment, Sasuke finally understood what it felt like to watch the two Kakashis constantly bicker with each other.
He suddenly really wanted to punch his other self. What kind of clothes were those?! And that hair was way too long. It looked awful!
"Hmph, Chidori?" Sasuke didn't waste any words. He quickly formed hand seals and fired off a Lightning Release: Chidori right in front of Sasuke Uchiha. "I learned this a long time ago. No special training needed."
This time, it was Sasuke Uchiha who sucked in a sharp breath.
Kakashi, Naruto, and Sakura from the same mission scroll world glanced at the Sasuke beside them, all thinking the same thing. So he could be this childish too.
Completely confused, Naruto Uzumaki pointed at Naruto and Sasuke.
"Just who are you guys, I'm asking! Are you enemies?!"
The job of explaining naturally fell to Adult Kakashi.
"Simply put," he said, "I'm Kakashi. He's Sasuke. This is Naruto, and that's Sakura. We're the same as you, except we come from another parallel world."
"Yeah, yeah!" Naruto hurriedly added, explaining to his counterpart from this world. "We just need to stop Sasuke from getting cursed by Orochimaru, stop Orochimaru from killing Grandpa Hokage, and help Gaara learn the truth. Then we'll leave!"
Cursed Seal?!
Kill the Hokage?!
Help Gaara learn the truth?!
Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, Naruto Uzumaki, Shikamaru Nara, and Shino Aburame from this world all froze.
"I think I roughly understand what you're saying," Shikamaru Nara said. "But where's the proof? How are we supposed to believe you?" He spoke cautiously, negotiating with the group in front of him.
Even though he hated trouble, with an IQ well over 200, there were some things he simply couldn't ignore.
Nearby, Temari and Kankurō were already thinking about how to take advantage of the chaos and slip away.
What neither of them expected was that Gaara would suddenly speak up, dragging their previously low-key presence straight into everyone's line of sight.
"The truth?" Gaara stared at the Naruto in front of him. "What do you mean by 'the truth'?"
Naruto noticed the wound on Gaara's shoulder and how poor his condition looked.
"You're in really bad shape. Want Sakura to take a look? She's really good at Medical Ninjutsu now!"
Medical Ninjutsu?!
Sakura Haruno was stunned. Since when did she know how to use something like that?
But she quickly realized that the "Sakura" Naruto was talking about was the one supposedly from another parallel world.
More than that, Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha, and the others all noticed something strange. The Naruto and Sakura in front of them didn't seem afraid of Gaara at all.
"Don't get close to that guy," Sasuke Uchiha warned. "You have no idea how strong he is. When I fought him earlier…"
Sasuke Uchiha recalled the scene in the arena. After injuring Gaara with Chidori, he had clearly seen through the hole torn open in the sand sphere.
What was inside was absolutely not something a human should have.
"That guy, I mean Gaara! His true body isn't like this at all!"
His true body isn't like this?
Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, Shikamaru Nara, and Shino Aburame all froze.
Nearby, whether it was Sasuke Uchiha's words that provoked him or the nonstop noise of Shukaku raging inside his head, Gaara's face began to crack. He clutched his head, his expression twisted in obvious pain.
"Gaara!"
Naruto from the mission scroll world grew worried about his condition and instinctively moved to go over.
"Idiot, don't go!" Sasuke grabbed Naruto by the shoulder. "He's not the Gaara from our world. Without the S-rank mission reward from the scrolls backing you up, you might not be able to beat him on your own!"
"But—"
"No buts. Stay right here."
After saying that, Sasuke turned his gaze to the Sasuke Uchiha opposite him and opened his three-tomoe Sharingan, carefully observing the flow of chakra inside his body.
"As I thought. Orochimaru has already placed a cursed seal on you."
Three tomoe?!
Compared to the cursed seal itself, what shocked Sasuke Uchiha even more was this. They were both "Sasuke Uchiha," so why did that version of him already have three tomoe?!
Hearing that Sasuke Uchiha had been marked with Orochimaru's cursed seal, Naruto panicked.
"Really?!" He immediately turned toward Adult Kakashi, his voice full of urgency. "Then what do we do?! Kakashi-sensei!!"
"That's… quite troublesome," Adult Kakashi said, clearly at a loss for the moment. "As Tobirama-sama once said, Uchiha who awaken their eyes are already prone to extreme thinking. With the cursed seal guiding him, it becomes very easy to lose himself."
"Lose himself?!"
Sakura Haruno and Naruto Uzumaki both looked toward Sasuke Uchiha on their side.
Hearing another Kakashi-sensei say that Uchiha tend to become more extreme after awakening the Sharingan made them think back. Ever since the Land of Waves mission, Sasuke's behavior really had grown more and more impulsive.
Naruto Uzumaki had thought that after the Land of Waves, his relationship with Sasuke would improve. Instead, there were many times when it felt even worse than before.
...
"Enough already!" Sasuke Uchiha snapped. "First, tell me why you can activate the three-tomoe Sharingan!" He glared at the Sasuke opposite him and shouted.
But before Sasuke could answer, Gaara's condition had already worsened. He held his head and let out low, pained groans.
Over there, Naruto Uzumaki asked anxiously, "What's wrong with him? And speaking of that, why did Kakashi-sensei say only I could defeat Gaara?"
Sasuke Uchiha froze. "You said Kakashi said what?!"
Naruto Uzumaki repeated himself. "To be exact, someone named Rin said only I could defeat Gaara. Then Kakashi-sensei said that since that person believed in me, I would definitely be able to do it. I don't even know who that person he was talking about is, dattebayo."
Honestly, he didn't have even the slightest confidence that he could beat Gaara.
Gaara was incredibly strong, and more importantly, Gaara, the one everyone called a monster, was able to fight bravely for his own sake.
"Rin?!" Sakura suddenly exclaimed excitedly. "You mean you met a girl named Rin?"
Sakura Haruno paused, stunned. "A girl? You mean… you know her?!"
"Yeah!" Naruto replied eagerly. "Rin came with us!"
"Where did you meet Rin?" Adult Kakashi asked. "At the Chūnin Exams arena?"
"Ah, yeah, that's right. It felt like she just suddenly appeared right in front of us," Sakura Haruno answered.
Naruto looked thrilled. "That's great! I thought it was just me, Sasuke, Kakashi-sensei, and Sakura who came this time! If Rin's here, then that means my dad and Obito must have come too!"
Across from him, Naruto Uzumaki, who had just been worrying about how he could possibly defeat Gaara, froze on the spot.
Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, Shikamaru Nara, and Shino Aburame all understood the words, yet still felt dazed, as if they'd heard something unbelievable.
"My dad?"
Sakura looked at Naruto Uzumaki beside her, then at the Naruto across from them.
"Who's your dad?"
Or rather… she had never heard that Naruto had parents at all?!
Naruto rubbed his nose and spoke with a hint of pride.
"My dad is really amazing. He's Kakashi-sensei's teacher!"
Sakura Haruno and Shikamaru Nara, who had already vaguely guessed who the "Minato-sensei" Kakashi-sensei mentioned might be, felt like they'd been struck by lightning.
Their whole bodies went numb.
"Y-you're kidding, right?!!"