The Great Toad Sage's aged, feeble voice slowly echoed through the hall, carrying a weariness and remoteness that seemed to span the ages.
"Little Jiraiya... and little Jiraiya's student... You're Minato's son, aren't you?"
His voice paused, as though he were struggling to dredge something from the murky river of his memories. Only after a moment did he continue.
"I remember now... Little Naruto's son is quite an extraordinary genius..."
His enormous head shifted slightly, as though he were "looking" toward Naruto. Yet the gaze in those half-lidded eyes seemed to pass through the boy before him, reaching toward the distant, indistinct shadows of some future.
"You must... raise him well!"
Those words were clearly directed at Jiraiya, carrying an elder's charge to a junior, as though he were asking him to tend a precious "seedling" whose growth would shape the future.
Yet to the other people and toads present, those words struck like a thunderclap.
Naruto looked at the old toad playing dumb atop the dais. This old toad really was impressive.
Had he sensed that Boruto had traveled into this time and space?
Sage Fukasaku was the first to react. He abruptly raised his head toward the Great Toad Sage, who had clearly slipped into another prophetic daze atop the dais. His voice rose involuntarily as he urgently reminded him:
"Great Elder, have... have you mixed things up again?"
He pointed at Naruto, who remained calm, merely lifting his eyes slightly toward the Great Toad Sage.
"No matter how you look at him, this boy isn't old enough to marry and have children yet! How could he have a son?"
Sage Fukasaku felt that the Great Elder must be terribly muddled this time. Minato had only been dead for thirteen years. Even if this blond boy was Minato's