Naruto was still unaware of everything that had happened in Konoha.
His journey had brought him to a stretch of mountains.
Naruto stopped the wide-area scan he was conducting with "Divine Technique: Clairvoyance."
It was not because he was running low on chakra, nor because he had found any trace of Jigen. Rather, an exceedingly humble, almost inconspicuous sight in the valley below had unexpectedly caught his eye, drawing his consciousness out of the vast currents of time and information.
It was a small mound of earth, with a rough wooden grave marker standing before it.
In this remote mountain wilderness, such a crude grave looked especially forlorn.
At Naruto's current altitude and distance, he should not have been able to make out the writing on the marker.
But to complement Divine Technique: Clairvoyance, he was currently using the six-tomoe Rinnegan, which possessed the keenest powers of observation.
Clairvoyance itself did not enhance his eyesight. He could only observe through his own eyes, so it benefited from the enhancements of the Rinnegan, Byakugan, and Sharingan.
His gaze pierced the distance and focused on the weather-beaten wooden marker.
Yota.
The grooves of that simple name had blurred somewhat, their edges bleached by wind and rain, yet Naruto could still make out the name in full.
Yota...
A crack opened in his long-buried memories, and the image of a small, thin boy in a ragged cloak, whose eyes had no whites yet who always wore a smile, gradually emerged from the mists of time.
The boy who could control the weather.
Naruto remembered.
It had been long ago, during those bleak days before he entered the Ninja Academy, when the threat of the Nine-Tails inside him kept the village leadership on high alert and ANBU watched him at all times.
Yota had