"I can't explain this either," Minato Namikaze said. "I've never encountered a Space-Time Ninjutsu of this caliber."
He took out the mission scroll that had fallen from Obito's ninja pouch and unfolded it.
"This scroll bears traces of the same Space-Time Ninjutsu that brought us here."
Kakashi froze, his gaze fixed intently on the scroll.
Minato Namikaze continued, "I don't know what this means. If we change history, what happens to the future that originally matched that history? Does it disappear? Or does it suddenly shift into a different future? Or does a new world emerge, one that corresponds to the altered history?"
His explanation was a bit complicated, but Kakashi immediately understood.
For example—
There's an apple in this room. If nothing is done to it, a person from the future who opens the door will find a rotten apple. They'll throw it in the trash.
So, the future of this apple would be—rotted and thrown away.
But what if someone traveled back in time and put that apple in the refrigerator?
Then, when someone from the future enters the room and opens the fridge, they might find the apple, and if they're thirsty, they might eat it.
Thus, the apple's fate becomes: still edible, eaten.
The theory Minato proposed was this: What if someone had already thrown the rotten apple into the trash, but then someone traveled back in time and put the apple in the fridge?
What would happen in the future?
There are three possible outcomes.
First:
The world where the apple rotted and was thrown in the trash is completely erased.
In other words, the previous world disappears entirely.
Second:
The apple that was rotting in the trash suddenly appears chewed up inside someone's stomach.
In this case, the two worlds merge.
Third:
Both worlds exist—one where the apple rots and is thrown away, and another where the apple stays edible and is eaten by someone.
This is—the concept of "parallel worlds"!
An apple might seem insignificant enough that it wouldn't affect the entire world.
But what if we add one more condition to this hypothetical scenario: What if the apple is highly poisonous?
If that's still not enough…
What if the person who eats the apple is the leader of a hegemonic nation, and before eating it, he was planning to do something that would harm all of humanity?
...
"Minato-sensei, what you're worried about is... if we change history, then we, as the future, will cease to exist?"
Minato nodded. "Or perhaps we'll be assimilated into another possible future—one that could be better, or perhaps worse."
He sighed. "For now, I can't say for certain. Any possibility exists. But this uneasy feeling in my heart is deeply connected to this mission scroll."
Minato tapped the mission scroll laid out before him.
The scroll was long, yet contained only one mission. The rest of it was completely blank.
[Mission Level: SSS]
[Mission Content: Kill—the Masked Man.]
Kakashi thought for a moment. "Kill the Masked Man..."
That was far too vague.
Every ninja village's ANBU wore masks. With hundreds or even thousands of ANBU per village, there were thousands of masked ANBU. Female ANBU were few, mostly male. At a 1:2 ratio, the target pool was easily two to three thousand.
That didn't even count the men who weren't ANBU but simply liked wearing masks.
"Kakashi, the last masked man we saw was..."
"The one with Zabuza," Kakashi replied. "That Kirigakure ANBU."
"But..."
Both he and Minato Namikaze spoke at the same time: "But..."
Minato pointed at the mission level on the scroll and said:
"Mission Level: SSS. I don't think a single Kirigakure ANBU would be assigned such a high-level mission."
In truth, missions involving the security of the Five Great Shinobi Nations or the assassination of daimyō-level figures would undoubtedly be rated S-rank.
But for smaller nations like the Land of Waves or the Land of Grass, according to the ninja world's mission rating system, even their complete destruction would only be rated S-rank, at most barely qualifying for SS-rank.
The S-rank rating includes additional consideration for the chain reactions caused by the annihilation of an entire country.
Minato said, "Even I've never seen an SSS-rank mission."
Kakashi nodded. "If this is an SSS-rank mission, then it's probably on the level of saving the world."
They stared at the scroll in their hands. Could the boy who was with Zabuza be the future one to destroy the world?
Just as the two of them were deep in thought, Naruto Uzumaki suddenly burst into the room!
"Kakashi-sensei!!"
Naruto kicked the door open, followed by Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno.
"What is it, Naruto?" Kakashi asked, turning to his student.
Naruto waved a scroll in his hand. "I've got one of those mission scrolls I've never seen before too, dattebayo!!"
Minato Namikaze's eyes narrowed sharply!
This scroll also carried the fluctuations of Space-Time Ninjutsu!!