Naruto: Starting by Reading Minds in Naruto

Tonbo recorded every detail Sasuke gave him about Ōtsutsuki Urashiki.

He hoped the man would not appear soon. Konoha’s current strength was poorly suited to that fight. Better still, Urashiki could remain lost in some worthless dimension and never appear at all.

”That is all the intelligence we have,” Sasuke said. ”He may possess other abilities we have never seen.”

”I understand. I will prepare for what you know and assume the rest is incomplete.” Tonbo put away the record. ”I sincerely hope he stays lost. Fighting him would be an enormous nuisance.”

Space rippled beside them.

A small turtle with a pink body and green shell emerged from the distortion. Karasuki had arrived.

”You must do exactly as you promised,” it told Tonbo. ”Contact with people from the future can alter history. They may even disappear if you change too much.”

The final warning was meant for Sasuke and Boruto as much as for him.

Tonbo leaned closer. ”What an unusual summoning beast.”

”Fool! I am Karasuki, a treasured tool capable of crossing time and space. Seal your memories quickly. If anything goes wrong, the future may truly change.”

Sasuke and Boruto looked at Tonbo.

”Why the hurry? We have not finished talking.” Tonbo turned back to them with open interest. ”How many children do I have in the future? Four? Five? Six? Eight? How strong are they? Did they become shinobi, inherit the family work, or choose other professions? I assume they are all remarkably capable.”

The two travelers and the treasured tool stared at him in speechless disbelief.

”My temporal energy is full,” Karasuki said. ”I must return to the future now. This conversation has already gone too far. Seal the memories.”

It did not want to discover that it could no longer leave.

”Wait. You arrived only a few days ago and already recovered enough energy. Does that mean you control time and space? That ability is extraordinary. Could I learn it? If the phenomenon exists, there should be some way to reproduce it.”

Karasuki sounded increasingly desperate. ”Time-space fluctuations cannot be used whenever one wishes. They activate only at a particular node—such as the moment when the future Ōtsutsuki activated me. I am a tool, not a teacher. Why have you still not sealed your memories?”

A vortex opened behind Sasuke and Boruto.

”Hurry!” Karasuki cried. ”The gate will close.”

”Very well.”

Tonbo closed his eyes and formed a rapid sequence of hand seals.

”Memory Seal.”

Chakra moved through his head and then subsided. Sasuke watched its path carefully. Satisfied, he nodded to Boruto and Karasuki.

The two humans and the treasured tool entered the passage. The vortex contracted behind them, twisted into a point, and vanished.

Tonbo opened his eyes.

”I deceived you,” he told the empty forest. ”With an unknown enemy still at large, why would I seal away the only warning I have? I am not an idiot. I will simply avoid changing more than necessary.”

Release.

Signals stored throughout the nerves of his body flooded back into his brain, restoring the memories he had appeared to remove.

Sasuke’s Sharingan had not been useless. The future shinobi’s ocular power was every bit as formidable as Tonbo expected. For that reason, Tonbo had prepared before approaching him.

He had sealed the part of his brain that directed his altered body and temporarily distributed those control functions through the nerves in his limbs and organs. Instead of relying on one central processor, his body had operated through many smaller ones. Sasuke’s genjutsu had disrupted the chakra in his brain, but the memories and bodily controls held elsewhere had remained beyond its reach.

The attack had chosen the wrong target and spent its strength for nothing.

When Tonbo formed the supposed Memory Seal, he had merely changed the route by which the stored signals returned. The visible chakra movement was real, which was why Sasuke’s inspection had accepted it. The conclusion drawn from that movement was false. Once the travelers crossed the gate, Tonbo released the prepared restrictions and allowed the scattered record to reassemble where conscious thought could use it.

Tonbo had designed that method as his first defense against Itachi’s Tsukuyomi. Heart Steel formed the second. Even if an illusion created a momentary opening, the technique could preserve him against an immediate follow-up. In a world where enemies so often fought in teams, that fraction of a second mattered.

”I do not intend to overturn the future,” Tonbo murmured. ”Urashiki may do that without my help. The question is when and how he will arrive.”

The Fourth Shinobi World War already promised more work than any reasonable person should endure. Now an additional Ōtsutsuki might descend without warning.

”If I see you, I will turn you into a test subject,” Tonbo said through his teeth. ”You chose the wrong life to disrupt.”

Urashiki had the Byakugan and the Rinnegan. The basic Byakugan could examine chakra flow, while the Rinnegan carried too many possible abilities to dismiss. Sasuke’s report gave Tonbo a starting point, but he still needed techniques capable of answering an enemy with both.

No wonder his future self established some kind of bureau. Research on that scale could not be avoided.

The future message also clarified the larger plan. If the instruction was to proceed exactly as intended, then the future Tonbo must have prospered under the existing sequence. The path he had already chosen was therefore the optimal one.

He did not read the message as permission to improvise a kinder history. His future self knew the outcome and had still warned him to preserve the original route. Whatever pain lay between the present and that future must connect to advantages they could not safely replace. Tonbo would interfere only where Urashiki’s unplanned arrival forced him to do so.

That meant allowing Orochimaru to assassinate his teacher and take Sasuke as a disciple.

The thought was ugly, but the chain of events was critical. Sasuke would eventually kill Orochimaru, later revive him, and somehow lead him to set aside his old ambitions. Tonbo needed a scientist of Orochimaru’s ability, and the future seemed to provide one. The sequence closed upon itself with unnerving neatness.

At worst, Tonbo could learn the Impure World Reincarnation and bring the Third Hokage back from time to time so that he could see Konohamaru.

”That may actually work. I should obtain the cells required to summon him.” Tonbo paused, then sighed. ”Everything for survival, Lord Third. I apologize. I will let you out for a walk occasionally.”

His willingness to seek Orochimaru’s help had a simpler basis as well: Orochimaru was the superior scientist.

Tonbo’s gift lay in developing and learning ninjutsu, especially Yin Release. He understood science and possessed knowledge that others lacked, but much of his progress came from applying that accumulated knowledge rather than from a natural scientific instinct. Beside Orochimaru, the difference was obvious. Tonbo could force himself toward the summit, but the effort would be twice as great for half the result.

Orochimaru could look at an unknown body or technique and discover questions Tonbo would not think to ask. Tonbo, in turn, could supply priorities, resources, and the practical knowledge of future threats. Their skills were not equal copies of each other; they were complementary. That was precisely why a bureau made more sense than another private laboratory.

Boruto’s accidental title finally made sense.

In the future, Tonbo would establish the Technology Development Bureau and serve as its director. Orochimaru could become deputy director and chief scientist, with other experts recruited around them. Tonbo would still guide the work while letting a true specialist lead the hardest research.

The arrangement sounded better the longer he considered it.

”I could leave Konoha’s front lines and move into logistics. I would finally have time for my own work. Whenever I wanted to avoid overtime, I could open a long project and claim it required my full attention. With my strength and position, who would challenge me?”

His future self really was a genius. The role suited a weary working man perfectly.

The pleasant vision did nothing to soften his thoughts about the missing enemy.

Ōtsutsuki Urashiki deserved to die. They had not even met, and already Tonbo wanted to dissect him beside Konoha’s future chief scientist.