Chapter 97 – The Law of Time and the Parallel World
Akira looked at Minato, tilting his head slightly, a faint, almost mischievous smile touching his lips.
"I understand what you're trying to say, Brother Minato," he said calmly, "but I don't really see the point in it. Why do you think that just by talking with people from the future, everything will suddenly change?"
His golden eyes glowed faintly as he continued, repeating the words that Minato had once taught him, yet twisting them into a question that challenged the very fabric of their understanding.
"When two points of time collide," Akira recited softly, "the universe trembles. Every action, every word becomes a thread that can unravel destiny. If the past is altered, the future begins to fade—erased by the very hand that reached out to save it. The world itself resists such change; it corrects, it balances, it erases. And the cost of knowing the truth... is existence itself."
He looked at Minato and asked with a light, teasing grin,
"Is that what you're trying to tell me, Brother Minato?"
Minato nodded slowly, his expression serious, affirming the accepted cosmic rule.
"Yes. You understand it perfectly… and yet you still think it's a good idea to keep talking with people from the future?"
Akira placed a hand on his chin and sighed dramatically, playing the role of the oblivious genius.
"Hmm… if I didn't already know who Naruto and Sasuke were, I might've thought they were bad people. So when you said not to talk to them, it felt like when parents say, 'Don't talk to strangers.'"
Kakashi almost choked on the dust, and even Chōza had to bite back a laugh at the absurd comparison. Minato gave Akira that familiar exasperated look—the one that said 'you're impossible'—but he didn't interrupt.
Akira smiled again and then spoke with sudden, piercing clarity, his voice echoing slightly in the ruins, carrying the weight of unknown science.
"Yes, Brother Minato, I still think it's fine. Because the future isn't a fragile stepping stone that breaks just because someone walks on it. If a person's will is strong enough, the world itself can bend—yes, it may try to erase that person, but if their will doesn't break, the world bends again and changes its path from what it was meant to be."
He paused, his golden Byakugan flickering once, emphasizing the radical new concept he was about to introduce.
"And there's something else you don't know—the concept of the parallel world. A world that exists beside our own. The same, yet fundamentally different. Sometimes only a small difference… sometimes completely different. If we interact with those worlds, it doesn't destroy time; it simply creates a new branch, a world slightly apart from what should be. Nothing fades—only multiplies."
The others fell silent, their expressions mixed with awe and disbelief at the casual dismantling of their understanding of physics. Minato, the prodigious genius, was utterly stunned.
Minato's eyes widened.
"We've all heard the law that says you can't change the past or the future… but I've never heard of something like this. Are you saying it's actually okay to change things?"
Akira nodded without hesitation.
"Yes. And by my calculations," he said with calm certainty, "this world and the one Naruto and Sasuke came from are already different. The proof? They don't even know me. In their time, I never existed—or was never mentioned at all."
Sasuke's brows furrowed, his tactical mind turning sharply, desperately trying to find a counterpoint.
"If the some thing happened… maybe people just didn't talk about it. Maybe the facts of your existence were kept secret."
Akira chuckled softly, dismissing the political rationale.
"That's not the point, Sasuke. Even if I had died in war, someone would have remembered. But it's impossible that I, an Uchiha with these eyes and this power, would just vanish from history completely."
He leaned forward slightly, his eyes gleaming.
"Besides, didn't you already raise your blade against me not long ago when you first came here?"
Sasuke's eyes widened slightly as the memory hit him—the primal, reflexive moment he'd mistaken Akira's golden Byakugan for an Ōtsutsuki's and attacked without hesitation.
Akira's smirk deepened, confirming his theory.
"See? Even you thought I was one of them. But maybe… that's because in your world, I never existed to begin with."