That entire exchange had lasted only a second or two.
Then the dust settled.
Three elite Konoha jonin had been suppressed almost instantly.
Shibi Aburame did not even have time to worry about his insects. He rushed straight to Choza's side and checked his condition.
When he looked up at Akira, the shock behind his dark glasses was obvious.
"This guy... he uses space-time ninjutsu too? And that speed... how is it even possible for him to be faster than Minato?"
Choza looked awful, scorched black and still smoking, but he was breathing. Clearly, the other side had held back.
As for Minato, with the blade at his throat, he had not moved once.
Cold sweat ran down the side of his face.
As the fastest ninja in the world, his instincts told him that if he had twitched at all in that moment, his head would already be on the ground.
Even if he had used Flying Raijin, the other man would have kept up, perhaps even outpaced him.
More importantly, he had not felt any real killing intent from this stranger.
Once Akira saw the situation was under control, he flicked his wrist, put away the short blade, and calmly stepped back.
Minato turned slowly.
The moment he saw the Konoha symbol on Akira's forehead protector, he froze.
"You... you're a Konoha ninja?"
Shibi and the half-conscious Choza stared too, both looking completely thrown.
One of their own had just attacked them?
Akira straightened his slightly rumpled collar and gave a small nod.
"That's right. I'm from Konoha. More specifically... from twenty years in the future."
The words hit like a bomb.
"The future Fourth Hokage," Akira continued, looking at Minato. "Though judging from how you're dressed, you haven't taken the position yet."
Minato's face went blank.
Future Fourth Hokage?
That was a lot to process at once.
Since Yamato, Konoha's resident spoiler machine, was not here this time, Minato had absolutely no framework for something like time travelers.
Akira ignored their shock and walked straight over to Choza, who was still twitching on the ground.
Shibi immediately shifted into a defensive stance, watching him closely.
Akira waved one hand dismissively. Soft green light bloomed in his palm.
"Relax. I'm a medical ninja. I hit him a little too hard, so I'm fixing it."
"Besides, if I really wanted the three of you dead, it wouldn't have taken any effort."
The words sounded arrogant, but Shibi had to admit they were true.
If even Minato had been pinned instantly, they had not stood much of a chance.
Very quickly, under the effects of Healing Jutsu, the blackened burns across Choza's body began to fade, and his breathing steadied.
Watching the smooth, practiced chakra control, Minato's expression shifted.
"That flow pattern... this medical ninjutsu is almost exactly like Tsunade-hime's."
It was Tsunade's signature method. No outsider should have been able to replicate it that closely.
Akira stood and dusted off his hands.
"Now that no one is dying, let's start over properly."
He looked at Minato directly, unflinching.
"I really am a Konoha ninja. I just happen to come from twenty years in the future."
"What?!"
Choza and Shibi nearly choked. "A man from the future? That's impossible!"
Minato was reeling too, but he held it together better than the others.
"Then why are you here?"
Akira pointed toward the distant line of towers barely visible on the horizon.
"I came to kill a rogue-nin from Sunagakure. He wanted to use the Dragon Vein to alter history. A little while ago, it went out of control and threw both of us into this era."
That completed the picture.
The mission Minato's team had been assigned was to investigate the mysterious puppet master operating in the ancient kingdom of Roran.
According to reports, a minister named Anrokuzan had seized control of the Dragon Vein, built a vast puppet army, and was aiming to conquer the world.
Now it was obvious.
This so-called Anrokuzan had to be the same man Akira called Mukade, the rogue-nin from the future.
It was the only explanation for how Roran's technology had advanced so absurdly fast in only a few years.
"The jutsu you just used..." Minato said, visibly more interested in that than anything else. "That was space-time ninjutsu too?"
For a man like him, that question was pure instinct.
Akira nodded. "It was. And yes, I know your Flying Raijin."
He pulled out a special kunai and tossed it into the distance.
A moment later, he vanished.
Then he appeared beside the flying blade, caught it, and in the next blink was standing right where he had started.
That display stunned all three of them.
"Flying Raijin... someone besides Minato actually mastered it?"
It was an S-rank forbidden jutsu from the Scroll of Seals, a jutsu so hard to learn it might as well have been impossible. Countless geniuses would have broken themselves against it.
At that point, Akira's identity was more or less beyond doubt.
Flying Raijin was one of Konoha's greatest secrets. If he could use it, he was definitely one of theirs.
"Since we're after the same target, let's work together," Akira said. "Roran hasn't fallen yet, but Mukade, or Anrokuzan if you prefer, got here more than a decade before I did. By now he's probably deeply rooted in the place."
Minato nodded. "That matches what we know. According to our intelligence, Anrokuzan suddenly appeared in Roran six years ago and gained the queen's trust very quickly."
"Good," Akira said, exhaling a little. "At least he didn't manage to start a war large enough to wreck history before I got here."
Choza, still looking dazed, could not help asking, "Uh... kid, you said Minato became the Fourth Hokage in the future? How many years from now are we talking?"
To them, Minato was still young. If he ever became Hokage, they assumed it would happen decades later, after the Third finally stepped down.
Which meant this boy might be from very far in the future.
"Are you Minato's student?" Shibi asked too.
Akira shook his head, then dropped the next bomb.
"I'm Kakashi-sensei's student. And the Fourth Hokage... died the year I was born."
"I serve the current Fifth Hokage, Tsunade-hime, as her personal guard."
The air in the desert seemed to freeze.
"What?!"
"Kakashi is still a kid!"
"And Minato dies that young?"
The amount of information hitting them at once was enough to break a lesser man's brain.
Minato stared for a beat, then let out a soft laugh, calm and strangely accepting.
"It was to protect the village, wasn't it?"
Akira looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
"It was to seal the Nine-Tails."
"Nine-Tails..." Minato's expression changed instantly.
His first thought was not of himself.
It was of Kushina.
As the Nine-Tails' jinchuriki, what that meant was obvious to him in a way it could never be to anyone else.
"Kushina..." His voice tightened. "Was she all right?"
Akira let out a quiet breath and decided there was no point in lying.
"Naruto, your son, is doing well now. He's strong too. Takes after Kushina-hime in temperament. Loud, direct, impossible to miss."
"The Nine-Tails was sealed inside him. He's already started learning how to control its power."
"My son? Naruto?"
Minato went still, and then something soft and warm lit up in his eyes.
That was the name of the hero from one of Jiraiya's books. So he really had chosen it in the end.
"And Kushina?" he asked again, more urgently this time.
Akira was silent for two seconds.
"When the Nine-Tails broke free, Kushina-hime was already dying... but in the end, she did get to see Naruto once."
"To protect the village, and to protect Naruto, the two of you... both gave your lives."
Even if the answer had been expected, hearing it aloud still weighed heavily.
Choza and Shibi both lowered their heads. The mood sank.
But Minato drew in a steady breath, put a hand on each of their shoulders, and smiled again, that same bright, steady smile like sunlight through clouds.
"As long as Naruto grew up safe, and the village endured, then that's enough."
"That was always going to be my duty as Hokage."
Akira looked at the man standing there and could not help feeling a flicker of respect.
This was Minato Namikaze.
Gentle, and impossibly strong.
"Don't worry," Akira said, easing the tension. "Konoha in my time is peaceful. There are some problems here and there, but overall it's a good era."
"And Naruto is my classmate now. As long as I'm around, nobody gets to make his life harder."
At that, the worry in Minato's eyes finally melted away.
"That's good," he said softly. "That's really good..."