Naruto: Uchiha Youngjo's Konoha Spring

Chapter 249 Minato: Is this my son?

"Alright! Then, let's go to the ruins of the ancient Loulan Kingdom together tomorrow!" Naruto patted Gaara on the shoulder and made the decision.

"Hey, Naruto, don't mess around. Oh well, Loulan has been abandoned for so long, it shouldn't cause any major trouble." Jiraiya wanted to remind Naruto not to mess around, but seeing that the kid looked like he had already made up his mind, he could only give up. If the kid were someone who listened to advice, he wouldn't have given up the hot springs and pretty girls in the Land of Hot Springs to come to the desert to eat sand.

The next morning, after Naruto and Gaara woke up, they set off for the ruins of the ancient kingdom of Loulan.

As they approached the ruins of the ancient Loulan Kingdom, Naruto looked up at the dilapidated buildings that had been eroded by the wind and sand, but still showed traces of their former grandeur. Naruto was momentarily lost in thought before turning back to look at Gaara.

"Gaara, do you know why this place has become like this?" Naruto asked, somewhat puzzled.

“I don’t know either,” Gaara said.

"When the ancient Loulan Kingdom began to decline, you two weren't even born yet, so it's normal that you don't know," Jiraiya explained to the two. "The ancient Loulan Kingdom once built a brilliant civilization in this desert by using puppetry techniques driven by some special energy. However, when their puppets lost power, they were no longer able to support such a large country, so the ancient Loulan Kingdom declined to its current state."

Jiraiya's face showed a hint of regret after he finished speaking.

"Special energy?" Naruto's face showed a look of astonishment. What kind of energy could support the establishment of such a large and prosperous empire, and then cause the empire to collapse after the energy disappeared?
For some reason, Naruto had a feeling that this matter was related to his father, the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze.

At this moment, a look of recollection appeared on Jiraiya's face: "It was shortly after your father came here on a mission. The Third Hokage also suspected that your father was involved, but neither your father nor the members of his squad remembered what exactly happened on that mission."

The three of them strolled through the ruins of the ancient Loulan Kingdom and soon arrived at a tower that had been eroded by wind and sand, leaving only half of it standing alone in the desert.

Naruto stared at the ruins of the tower, momentarily lost in thought. A strange feeling compelled him to go inside.

Naruto thought for a moment, then stepped into the tower.

Seeing this, Jiraiya and Gaara followed.

After entering the tower and walking through the darkness for a while, Naruto arrived at the center of the tower. When he saw the light again, he had entered a room where the ground was covered with faded sealing runes.

Naruto glanced down at the sealing technique formula on the ground, scratched his head for a long time, and then said uncertainly, "What is this? The Five Elements Seal?"

"Who did you learn this sealing technique from? This is clearly the Eight Trigrams Sealing Technique." After Jiraiya followed in, he observed the situation in the room for a while, and then couldn't help but complain after hearing Naruto's words.

"Oh, so it's the Eight Trigrams Seal," Naruto said, sticking out his tongue. "No wonder it looked familiar."

"It seems this is the place Minato visited back then," Jiraiya said. "After all, back then, the only people in the entire ninja world who mastered the Eight Trigrams Seal were probably your parents. But why does this seal look like it has been damaged?"

Naruto gazed at the very center of the room, where the remaining sealing runes converged, and a peculiar kunai was quietly stuck into the ground.

"The Sword of Love and Resentment?" When Jiraiya and Naruto arrived next to the kunai, Naruto was still wondering what it was when Jiraiya recognized it first. After all, such a three-pronged kunai was unique in the entire ninja world.

"This is... my father's kunai?" Naruto turned to Jiraiya and asked.

"Yes." Jiraiya nodded.

After getting the answer, Naruto immediately reached out for the Sword of Love.

"Wait a minute!" Jiraiya shouted as soon as he saw this.

However, the next second, Naruto suddenly felt the chakra in his body resonate with the little chakra still remaining in the kunai, and a blinding white light flashed before his eyes.

After an unknown amount of time, the three of them slowly woke up.

After waking up, the three of them first observed their surroundings.

"This is... that place from before?" Jiraiya barely recognized that this was the room where the Sword of Love had been stuck. But now, both the Sword of Love and the sealing technique left on the ground had disappeared. Moreover, the furnishings in the room looked much newer than before. More importantly, in the area where the Sword of Love had been, a purple pillar of light stood, radiating a huge chakra fluctuation.

Suddenly, a noisy commotion came from outside. It sounded like a bustling crowd. The three of them looked at each other with disbelief.

"Could there be someone else in this place?" The three of them quickly headed towards the direction from which the sound came. However, when they walked out of the tower together, the scene before them deeply shocked them. The desolate place they had seen before had disappeared, replaced by many tall buildings with unique shapes.

However, before the three could be shocked for long, three whooshing sounds rang out.

"Watch out!" Jiraiya shouted a warning.

Three enormous puppets attacked from behind the three of them. After dodging the sneak attack from behind, the three of them turned around to look at the attackers.

"A puppet?" Jiraiya frowned as he looked at the large puppet that surrounded the three of them. "It's so big?"

While Jiraiya was still marveling at the size of the approaching puppet, Naruto and Gaara had already engaged their respective opponents. Naruto dodged a wave of attacks by stepping on a gust of wind, and then, with his right leg wrapped in wind blades, he delivered a powerful kick to the puppet. The puppet's surface, which appeared to be made of refined steel, instantly developed cracks and cut marks, but the puppet's momentum in attacking Naruto did not diminish in the slightest.

"Sand Binding Coffin!" After Gaara made a simple hand seal, countless grains of sand surged from the ground and wrapped around the attacking puppet in a few breaths. Then, Gaara, who was controlling the sand, also sensed the enormous force of the puppet's struggle coming from the sand.

Gaara frowned slightly, then clenched his outstretched hands tightly, causing the sand binding the puppet to tighten abruptly. The immense pressure made the sand inside make a series of crunching, teeth-grinding sounds.

However, Gaara also discovered that his techniques, which usually turn ordinary Jonin into mincemeat when hit, seemed to be less effective against these metal lumps.

"You two! Don't use brute force! Find the chakra threads connecting these puppets! Then cut them!" Jiraiya was also a bit of a headache looking at the fighting style of the two Jinchuriki in front of him. These two kids lacked basic knowledge of ninjas. They didn't even know the basic common sense of finding the chakra threads when facing puppets. Moreover, it was understandable that Naruto didn't know, but Gaara, who could be said to be the Jinchuriki of Sunagakure who was representative of puppetry, didn't know either. It seemed that the Fourth Kazekage, Rasa, really didn't treat him as a normal ninja to be trained.

"Chakra connection lines?" After hearing Jiraiya's words, Naruto carefully observed the situation of the puppet he was facing. Before long, he discovered that there were indeed several thin lines with a slight blue glow behind the puppet. These thin lines were difficult to spot in the sunlight without careful observation.

"Damn it, who's controlling these puppets?" Jiraiya frowned deeply after dodging the puppets' attacks with a series of leaps. These puppets were far more resilient than any Sunagakure puppets he had ever seen. What was even stranger was that, normally, the puppets and the puppeteers controlling them shouldn't be too far apart, since chakra would inevitably be lost during the transmission of chakra threads into the puppets.

However, no matter how hard Jiraiya searched, he could not find the owner of these three puppets.

However, after being reminded by Jiraiya, Naruto and Gaara quickly severed the chakra connection between the puppet in front of them. The giant puppet crashed down in front of the three of them, and they breathed a sigh of relief.

However, at that moment, a kunai shot rapidly toward the area where the three were located.

Naruto and Gaara locked onto the kunai almost instantly, but just as they were about to retaliate, Jiraiya, who had also noticed the kunai, grabbed their shoulders. However, his face was filled with a deep sense of disbelief.

Just as the kunai was about to reach them, a golden figure flashed by, grabbed the kunai, and then, before Naruto and Gaara could react, this person who appeared out of thin air grabbed Jiraiya's arm.

The next instant, the four of them vanished from the spot.

……

When Naruto came to his senses, he found himself in a secluded alley. Only then did he see the face of the person who had taken them away. The person had blond hair and wore a peculiar mask.

The newcomer slowly removed his mask, revealing a face that completely stunned Naruto.

"Jiraiya-sensei, what are you doing here?" Minato Namikaze asked, looking at Jiraiya.

"Minato...?" Jiraiya looked at the familiar face and was momentarily dazed, but he quickly noticed something unusual.

[Wait... Minato looks much younger than when he became the Fourth Hokage, so... is this a timeline from the past?]

"Jiraiya-sensei? Why are you looking at me like that?" Minato Namikaze was puzzled by Jiraiya's gaze. He couldn't find anything unusual about Jiraiya's appearance. After all, Jiraiya looked like he was 40 when he was 30, so now that he's 50, he doesn't look much older than before.

"Dad... Dad?" Naruto suddenly called out to Minato Namikaze.

Although the person in front of him looked younger than his father whom he had seen in the Nine-Tails' sealing space, the fluctuations in his chakra clearly told Naruto that the person in front of him was his father.

Minato Namikaze: ? ? ?
What's wrong with this kid? Why does he call everyone "Dad"?
Naruto's address completely stumped Minato Namikaze. After thinking for a moment, Minato looked at Jiraiya and asked, "Jiraiya-sensei, who are these two children?"

“Uh, Minato, who are they…” Jiraiya hesitated, mainly because he was unsure whether revealing their identities to people from the past would have a negative impact on history and the future.

However, at this moment, Naruto blurted out, "My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I am your son, the Fourth Hokage!"

"Hey! Naruto!" Jiraiya was shocked to see this and hurriedly tried to stop Naruto from continuing his self-destruction.

"Uzumaki...Naruto?" Minato Namikaze looked at Naruto in disbelief after hearing his words. Only then did he realize that the boy in front of him not only had the same golden hair as him, but his features also vaguely resembled those of his lover, Kushina Uzumaki.

"So, what this child said might be true? He really is my son?" Minato Namikaze stared blankly at Naruto's face.

"Uh, Minato, to avoid affecting history and the future, I won't go into too much detail. In short, we returned here from about 20 years in the future." Seeing that things had come to this, Jiraiya decided not to hide anything anymore and revealed the origins of his group.

"I understand." Minato Namikaze nodded, but it wasn't hard to tell from his expression that he wasn't entirely calm either. After all, he and Kushina were still in the honeymoon phase and their marriage was still some time away. But suddenly, such a big son appeared out of nowhere. To be honest, anyone would find it hard to accept such a thing.

"Minato, can you tell me what your mission here is this time?" Jiraiya asked. Now he realized why Minato's mission report was so vague. It was probably because of their intervention that Minato had sealed that memory to prevent it from affecting his future.

"For this mission, Jiraiya-sensei, please come with me first. I'll explain after we meet up with Choza and Shimi," Minato Namikaze said.

“Okay.” Jiraiya nodded.

"So, this is... the past 20 years ago?" But just then, Gaara, who hadn't spoken until now, suddenly raised his head and looked at everyone, asking.

(End of this chapter)