A new future

Mount Myōboku, Ryūchi Cave, Shikkotsu Forest.

These were the Three Sage Art Training Grounds of the shinobi world. Their rulers were not humans, but Summoning Beasts that practiced Sage Jutsu.

Mount Myōboku was a hidden corner of the vast world, home to the toads that served as summoning beasts.

At that moment, the enormous Great Toad Sage sat slumped in his lofty seat on Mount Myōboku and suddenly let out a thoughtful murmur.

"Hmm..." He opened his slightly clouded eyes, muttering to himself. "Something has changed... Strange. I can't see it clearly."

A little toad nearby looked up at those words and prepared to notify the other sages.

Their ancient ancestor always delivered prophecies upon waking from his slumber, and each prophecy revealed crucial information capable of shaking the many powers of the shinobi world.

But before the little toad could leave, the Great Toad Sage mumbled for a long while, then suddenly opened his eyes wide. "This... This is..."

Startled by the commotion, the little toad stumbled and fell onto his back, belly up, and hurriedly asked, "Ancestor, what's wrong?"

"Incredible, incredible." The Great Toad Sage ignored the little toad's question, clicking his tongue in wonder.

Before long, the other toads of Mount Myōboku who practiced Sage Jutsu arrived one after another. The highly respected husband and wife, Fukasaku and Shima, stepped forward. Seeing the Great Toad Sage still muttering to himself, they asked in confusion, "What's wrong with the old sage? Has he finally gone completely senile?"

"You're the one who's senile!" Those disrespectful words finally brought the Great Toad Sage back to his senses. Looking at the many toads gathered below, he said solemnly, "Just now, I saw the future."

"Does it concern the shinobi world? Should we notify Jiraiya?"

"No. It has nothing to do with him."

The Great Toad Sage's previous prophecies had all concerned the Child of Prophecy, so they had assumed this one would too. Instead, his next words shocked the many toads who practiced Sage Jutsu.

"I saw an entirely new senjutsu tradition born in Konoha!"

"Natural energy!" Minato Namikaze recognized the pure energy the Nine-Tails had gathered at a glance. His teacher, Jiraiya, had once taught him Mount Myōboku's senjutsu training. Though he was not particularly adept at it, he had learned it.

Sage Mode involved mixing natural energy with Chakra to form a unique kind of senjutsu Chakra within the human body. Unlike ordinary Chakra, this senjutsu Chakra could not be gathered while fighting. Once it ran out, the user would leave Sage Mode, and it consumed an enormous amount of stamina.

Senjutsu Chakra could multiply the power of existing Ninjutsu, even surpassing the limits of what Ninjutsu could achieve. His teacher Jiraiya had called Ninjutsu performed with senjutsu Chakra senjutsu.

Yet the natural energy before the Nine-Tails now gave him a vague impression. Though faint, this energy seemed to be slowly growing, much like Chakra.

More importantly, Minato Namikaze glanced at the bars formed by the combination of his Four Symbols Seal and Eight Trigrams Sealing Style, and at the talisman on them that indicated the seal remained intact.

The Nine-Tails was clearly still in the Sealing. Without even a physical body, how had it extracted natural energy inside Naruto's Mental World?

In Minato's eyes, the Nine-Tails was becoming increasingly mysterious.

Though what the Nine-Tails had told him was inconceivable, Minato Namikaze was no ordinary man. He could naturally judge that it was not fabricated. Besides, those were only things that might happen in the future. Changes made now could alter that future, and he was working toward that end.

But he could not see through the Nine-Tails now. It had once told him that the Ōtsutsuki Clan could absorb Chakra, and that tailed beasts, as life-forms made of condensed Chakra, were inherently unable to stand against the Ōtsutsuki.

That was why it had brought him out to teach Naruto. He had assumed they would have to rely on Naruto's growth, yet the Nine-Tails had barely spoken with Naruto during this time. What exactly was it doing?

The natural energy the Nine-Tails had gathered now gave Minato a bold idea.

Only...

"Nine-Tails, has my seal on you already become nothing more than a formality?" Minato Namikaze asked with a helpless expression.

"How could that be? I'm still trapped in the Sealing, unable to gain my freedom." The Nine-Tails immediately denied it, but anyone could hear how little it cared about the Sealing. Nothing about it suggested a creature bound within a Sealing and deprived of freedom.

I actually think you rather enjoy staying inside this seal. Minato silently made the observation to himself, but his emotional intelligence was hardly so low that he would say it aloud.

The Nine-Tails' good mood vanished as quickly as it had come. After displaying the natural energy, it lay back down on the ground, motionless.

Throughout these nearly two years, this was how the Nine-Tails and Minato had always gotten along. After exchanging a few casual words, they would each silently return to their own tasks.

Ever since learning about the future, Minato had never been free of the weight on his heart. He believed the same was true of the Nine-Tails, which had returned to the past through a twist of fate and gained a chance to start over.

After all, according to the information the Nine-Tails had provided, almost no one in the future shinobi world had the strength to face the Ōtsutsuki Clan alone. Even Naruto and Sasuke, who had received gifts from the Sage of Six Paths, could barely stand against a single member together. In fact, if the Isshiki the Nine-Tails had mentioned had not possessed a fatal weakness, they might have been unable to defeat that enemy even by sacrificing the Nine-Tails.

For Minato, a veteran of countless battles, his first reaction to this news was not to consider how to eliminate that one enemy in advance, but—

What if several members of the Ōtsutsuki Clan attacked together?

Minato Namikaze had earned the name of Konoha's Yellow Flash amid the mountains of corpses and seas of blood of war. He knew perfectly well that, in the future the Nine-Tails described, the entire shinobi world was not even qualified to wage a true war against the Ōtsutsuki Clan. Nor would the Ōtsutsuki Clan always send only two or three members to this world.

One man and one beast were each seeking a way out in their own manner. Both the Nine-Tails and Minato Namikaze in his current state were constructs of condensed chakra, which meant neither needed sleep.

Still, as a former Hokage, Minato Namikaze naturally understood the importance of balancing work and rest. In other words, although they did not need sleep, they still needed other ways to rest.

For instance, when Minato taught the two beginners basic ninja lessons at night, spending time with Naruto allowed him to relax a little. The Nine-Tails, meanwhile, devoted all its time to its plan, apart from occasionally relaxing during the day by openly observing the world through Naruto's eyes.

The purpose behind it all was that both of them understood how utterly hopeless the future the Nine-Tails had experienced truly was. They needed to change everything and reach a new future.

And on that point, the two shared an unspoken understanding.