By Your Command, Commissar!

Jiraiya's anxious shout echoed over the training ground, but Naruto paid it no heed.

The black mist pouring from the Summoning Jutsu array showed no sign of dispersing. Instead, it grew thicker and denser, writhing and contracting as if alive. The air was saturated with the choking, rusty stench of gunpowder mixed with old blood. Jiraiya and Hinata both instinctively held their breath. That smell belonged to no battlefield in this world.

At the center of the black mist, a silhouette gradually took shape.

At last, the mist was completely forced apart and absorbed by a tall figure. A man simply appeared, standing in the middle of the array.

He wore a dark green suit of standard-issue armor, strange in design and filled with sharply angular industrial styling. It was covered in scratches and old damage. He held a long, black weapon with a crude, vicious shape, its barrel wide enough to fit a fist inside. His face was carved with weathered lines and savage scars, his eyes alert and ferocious like a beast that had just crawled out of a meat grinder. Every inch of him radiated the killing intent of someone who wanted no strangers near him.

Every muscle in Jiraiya's body tensed.

He could not sense even the slightest trace of chakra flowing from this man. Yet that only made his heart pound harder. That pure killing intent, steeped in mountains of corpses and seas of blood, was more intense and more absolute than that of any villain or criminal he had ever encountered.

Another monster.

Instinctively, he assumed a combat stance. His hands had already formed the seals, ready to summon Bunta at any moment. He shouted sharply at Naruto, "Naruto! What is that thing? Dismiss it now!"

The summoned man, Karsten, looked around in confusion. Sunlight, trees, fresh air—everything was utterly different from the eternal gray sky of artillery fire and wailing that he remembered. He growled in a rough, hoarse language that Jiraiya and Hinata could not understand at all, "What the hell is this place? Some Psyker witchcraft trick?"

His gaze swiftly swept across the horrified Jiraiya and the pale-faced Hinata before finally settling on Naruto, who stood closest to him.

He looked like nothing more than a harmless blond brat.

But in an unfamiliar environment, anything unknown was a threat. Karsten's soldier instincts made him raise his weapon without hesitation. The massive black muzzle aimed directly at Naruto's head.

"Naruto!" Hinata screamed, her Byakugan activating instantly in fear.

Jiraiya's heart leaped into his throat as well, and he was about to act regardless of the consequences.

At that critical instant, Naruto moved.

He neither retreated nor formed any seals. He even ignored Jiraiya's warning. Facing that pitch-black muzzle, he took a step forward.

He spoke in the same rough language, his tone carrying unquestionable authority and the majesty of one who stood above others.

"Lower your weapon, soldier."

The voice was not loud, yet it exploded in Karsten's mind like a thunderclap.

Karsten's whole body shuddered.

That voice... it sounded young, but the authority engraved deep within his soul—the authority of the highest point in the chain of command—was incomparably familiar. It was the voice that had sustained them in the trenches, before every charge, and in their darkest moments, allowing them to keep fighting.

He hesitantly looked at the blond boy before him. The barrel lowered slightly, while his eyes filled with confusion and suspicion.

"Who are you? How do you speak Imperial Gothic?"

Naruto calmly met his gaze. In his ice-blue eyes was reflected Karsten's face, lined with doubt and hardship.

"Karsten Raine, corporal of Third Company, 101st Regiment, Cadian Shock Troops." Naruto's voice was steady and clear, as though reading from a file. "During the Siege of Tarans, your left leg was struck by shrapnel from a Chaos Space Marine's Bolter. I was the one who dragged you out from beneath that pile of corpses."

Every word struck Karsten's heart like a heavy hammer.

His pupils shrank sharply.

Those details—details only he and that person could have known! The old wound in his left leg now throbbed faintly from its owner's agitation. Trembling, he stared fixedly at the twelve-year-old boy before him, as though trying to see through that young shell to the awe-inspiring figure who had once led them to victory again and again amid gunfire and bombardment, with cold words and eyes of steel.

"Your standard-issue Bolter is a Lucius Pattern 97. An 'A' is carved into the stock, the initial of your deceased daughter Emily's name."

"On the right side of the gun, three centimeters above the trigger, there is a scratch about two fingers long. On the third day of the Siege of Tarans, a ricochet struck there. You spent three nights filing down the burrs, all while complaining that it had ruined the weapon's balance."

"In your left boot, you keep an Imperial Tarot card—The Star. Sergeant Mina shoved it into your hand before charging the Chaos position. It was the last thing on her that was still relatively intact."

Karsten's lips trembled, and a nearly distorted word squeezed from his throat, filled with boundless reverence and disbelief.

"Com... Commissar?"

Naruto gave a slight nod.

"The Emperor's will has brought us together once more."

Boom!

That confirmation, like a final command, instantly shattered all of Karsten's doubt and caution.

He immediately cast off all hostility and lowered the vicious weapon known as a Bolter. He abruptly brought his feet together, his heels striking the ground with a dull thud. Then, with all his strength, he straightened his back and gave Naruto a flawless standard military salute.

The movement was so sharp that his battered armor rang out with a crisp clatter.

"Commissar! Soldier Karsten reporting for duty!"

His roar was loud and powerful, filled with the excitement of surviving disaster and the absolute loyalty of finding his place once again.

The training ground fell into dead silence.

Jiraiya and Hinata stared, dumbfounded, at the utterly incomprehensible scene.

Though they could not understand a single word of that strange language, what they had just witnessed was more shocking than any explanation could have been.

The man who had been menacing and murderous a moment ago, ready to fire at any second, had undergone a world-shaking reversal after exchanging only a few words with Naruto.

That reverence was not an act. It was utterly pure and genuine.

Jiraiya's mind went blank.

Had he fallen under Genjutsu? Impossible.

He was a master of Genjutsu himself. Everything before him was undeniably real.

What the hell was going on?

Minato's son... what had he gone through all these years? Commissar? What even was that?

Jiraiya scratched his head to himself, completely overwhelmed.

Hinata also stared blankly at Naruto's back, wondering what Naruto had gone through in places she could not see. It must have been very hard for him.

Naruto ignored the two people frozen behind him.

He looked at the soldier standing rigidly before him and issued a new command in Imperial Gothic.

"Relax, Karsten. This is not a war zone. It is my hometown."

"Yes, sir!" Karsten answered without hesitation, though his body remained tense.

Naruto examined him, as well as the Bolter in his hands, and frowned almost imperceptibly.

"Your equipment... how are your supplies?"

At that, bitterness appeared on Karsten's face. "Reporting, sir, they are very poor. Our regiment has been cut off from the main force for too long. I only have three magazines left for my Bolter. My power pack is nearly depleted as well."

Naruto nodded.

An Astra Militarum veteran with only three magazines remaining.

Was this the wonder of the Summoning Jutsu?

It had directly and randomly "anchored" a unit from another universe's timeline, one that had formed a profound bond with his soul.

This was no longer something that chakra and ninjutsu could explain.

He turned toward the completely stupefied Jiraiya.

"Pervy Sage," Naruto said calmly, "your technique is very useful."

Jiraiya's mouth twitched. How could he care about being called that now? He only wanted to know what the hell was happening.

"Naruto... this... this is..."

Naruto did not answer directly. Instead, he looked at Karsten and spoke in Imperial Gothic again. "Karsten, show this... ally your weapon."

"By your command, Commissar!"

Karsten stepped forward and presented the vicious Bolter to Jiraiya.

Jiraiya instinctively took half a step back, staring warily at the "hunk of metal."

Naruto explained blandly, "His name is Karsten. He used to be my subordinate. The thing in his hands is called a Bolter, a kind of... large-caliber ninja tool."

"A ninja tool?" Jiraiya felt as though his worldview was being repeatedly ground into the dirt.

"Find a target," Naruto told Karsten. "Show him what it can do."

Karsten acknowledged the order and looked around. At last, he aimed the weapon at a massive training boulder at the edge of the field, nearly half a man tall.

He expertly disengaged the safety and pulled the trigger.

There was no deafening blast, only a dull pff, like compressed air being released all at once.

The next second, that hard boulder silently... exploded before Jiraiya and Hinata's horrified eyes.

It had not been shattered by impact. From within, it had been violently blown into a cloud of powder.