Naruto: The Crimson Error

"We will," Naruto immediately answered.

"I don't think that's a good idea. You guys are from this past. It would be problematic if something happened to you, let alone the memories you would have of this event," Sora shook his head.

"But..." Naruto didn't really have a good point to argue back, as Sora's points were reasonable.

"Listen, that lady is dangerous. I can't let you go alone. She can teleport randomly; you could be caught off guard. Plus, as you said, she backstabbed the other guy who was so much more powerful," Jiraiya said with a grim face.

"Yup, what he said," Naruto quickly supported Jiraiya's words.

"You just want to see how the lady looks, don't you?" Sora deadpanned.

However, Jiraiya, the man who had been on battlefields for so many years and was the ninja with the most missions covered—not only in Konoha but possibly in the world—didn't let his facial expression change one bit.

"That's a lie. I'm just worried about you," the seriousness on Jiraiya's face increased.

"Yeah, sure~," Sora said, not believing the old man one bit.

Sora then closed his eyes, considering the pros and cons of the choices in front of him. 

It would be a disaster if things went wrong, but he could get some firepower out of these two and make use of them.

After half a minute of intense concentration and thinking, Sora decided, "Fine, we will do that. Put this seal on your stomach." Sora threw two paper tags at them, which the latter two caught.

"What's this?" Naruto asked.

Jiraiya, being who he was, instantly identified its functions. "It's a seal that prevents chakra from leaving your body involuntarily and in massive amounts... So, that fishing rod should be able to suck out another person's chakra, huh?" Jiraiya instantly deduced the reason for using this seal.

"Yup, on point, Ero-sennin. We don't want you to run out of chakra now, do we? You're already old. Without chakra, you'd just be a poor, defenceless old man."

"Brat! Don't give me a reason to beat you," Jiraiya warned while placing the paper on his stomach, where it stuck automatically.

Naruto did the same.

And then, there was silence.

"Now what? Weren't we going after the lady, or will you let your clone handle it?" Naruto asked.

"Yup, my clones are more than self-sufficient to do that. I'm curious about what the lady's plans are. She's going further back in time," Sora furrowed his brows.

"This Uchiha lady— is she from the past or the future?" Jiraiya asked.

"Well, she is definitely from the past; otherwise, her use of chakra would have been more advanced than ours... or she could be from the present too—maybe hidden somehow and living separately," Sora shrugged.

"Interesting," Jiraiya rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Oh," Sora suddenly said.

"Hmm?"

"Well, she increased her speed of travelling and then disappeared into space somewhere after stopping in one era," Sora said with a frown on his face.

"You could tell when she's going to change the time/era she's in?" Jiraiya looked at him questioningly.

"Yeah, I could, but it gets tough to follow her in space, as her speed is faster. I could still follow her if she moves along the time axis."

"Cool, now teleport us to that era then," Jiraiya said, and Sora hummed in agreement.

"Let me first dispel my clones that are gathering nature energy," Naruto interrupted them and formed a cross seal. One shadow clone appeared and then dispelled, sending its memories to the other clones.

Soon, Sora and Jiraiya felt nature energy rushing to Naruto.

"Okay, I'm ready," Naruto said. Sora nodded at that.

He lifted one of his legs and stomped on the ground, chakra flowing out from where he stomped in a way that resembled how fuinjutsu seals spread, with words moving. 

The "circle" covered the trio, and they disappeared from the spot.

In the next instant, they appeared in a forest where one of Sora's clones was present. It then disappeared again, presumably going after the lady.

"So, which time is this?" Naruto asked as he formed more shadow clones, which then went back to meditating. 

He didn't know whether dispelling a shadow clone in a different time would cause the chakra/nature energy to travel through space and time to reach the user. 

That would be an interesting experiment to try. However, doing this in a scenario where a battle could occur would be unwise. 

Naruto is anything but dumb. 

Okay, that's a lie, but he can think... most of the time.

"Hmm, I'm not really sure. It should be a bit before the Nine-Tails Rebellion, I guess," Sora hummed while looking around.

"We'll know soon... So, what now?" Jiraiya asked. 

He was starting to feel a bit nervous. If this was before the Nine-Tails Rebellion, it meant Minato was alive... 

Well, he would love to meet his former disciple, but just thinking of meeting him made him feel a bit nervous. 

It's similar to how one feels when they see someone they know from the past brought back using reanimation.

"What is it, Ero-sennin? Regretting coming now?" Sora snickered.

"Hmph, I regret nothing," Jiraiya snorted and reminded himself of the goal he came for. 

To look at the hot lady.

"Uhh," Sora's face twisted in a grimace, causing the other two to look at him in alarm.

"She's engaging with two people here, trying to get their chakra with a sneak attack, but she was thwarted. Now she's battling two others," Sora reported.

"Hurry up and teleport us. We'll gang up on her," Jiraiya said in a hurry.

Sora faltered for a second before nodding. 

This time, he didn't have to stomp on the ground as they got teleported.

**

Today was a wonderful day. Why, you may ask?

Well, there's no explicit reason, but do people need such reasons to feel happy?

Minato hummed while looking at some paperwork regarding a proposal for making a new orphanage.

' Yeah, no, do they think I am an idiot or something? Their intentions are too clear with this. They should have at least tried to be subtle,' Minato deadpanned at the proposal, which was subtly trying to get profit out of the orphanage funds with the terms it stated.

Minato put this in a different box.

He was going to send some Anbu personally to take care of the person behind this later.

It had been more than a week since he was elected as the Fourth Hokage, and life had been busy for him.

The Third Great Ninja War had just ended; however, he had to take care of the cleanup after one great war.

The Third Hokage was really cunning to hand him the position at this critical time, where the workload would be a few times more than normal.

Well, he had always wanted to be a Hokage, so he couldn't complain... at least not one week into the job.

A war is fought between villages to gain land or to get resources out of each other.

But war has a tremendous impact on the economy and people.

Many kids were orphaned due to the war; there were a lot of refugees in the Land of Fire that needed to be taken in somewhere.

Then there were ninjas who had lost their comrades or loved ones, who were also ninjas. Helping them get back into the right mental state would require a lot of time, and even then, it was less likely that they would return to the shinobi career.

That's why he would have to plan accordingly for how many kids the academy would train, such that they would not face a problem in the next great ninja war.

Well, Minato really couldn't complain, as he loved helping people. The satisfaction after doing so was really good.

So, now he was in the best position to help people, just like he had always wanted to.

Minato took out another paper and started reading it. Then, suddenly, his eyes widened, and he disappeared from the office, startling the Anbu in the room.

Minato used the Flying Thunder God technique very casually, but generally, he told them that he was leaving or something. However, this time, it was sudden.

They didn't have to wait long to guess where he went, as they felt a sudden spike of chakra in one corner of the village.

They rushed there.

Minato quickly appeared at his house and saw Kushina unleashing her adamantine chains on another lady, who was dodging them with ease—more like dancing.

'Sharingan, 3-tomoe; blood on the stomach, wounded there but healed by Kyūbi's chakra, so Kushina was likely ambushed and injured; space-time disturbance, probably uses some technique which helps her do that, also likely how Kushina was ambushed,' Minato instantly analyzed the battle in a second.

***

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