Dropped into Naruto, Breaking the World Apart

Shizune stood frozen, completely at a loss.

Tsunade's body tensed.

Beads of cold sweat rolled down Itō Hidenaka's face.

"Sir… could you please stop messing around? If this keeps up, that entire timeline will collapse!"

"Mm." The demon nodded in agreement, then casually tweaked a few more parameters.

Itō Hidenaka could barely watch. Ever since the demon traveled backward through time into this era, everything had spiraled out of control.

The demon had mentioned that they treated a segment of the past as a hunting ground for tracking down and capturing time-travelers. That assumption… wasn't far from the truth.

But the real truth was far more complex.

For starters, the time machine wasn't invented in this era. It was derived from the Ōtsutsuki clan's dimensional traversal technology, which was bound to their bloodline and Rinnegan. After the fall of the Ōtsutsuki, the native shinobi of this world didn't have the energy or capacity to pursue space-time science. Their research tree had instead branched deeply into biology.

Later, however, an archaeological team unearthed an ancient tomb. The epitaph was inscribed in characters never before seen in the shinobi world. In the burial chamber, they discovered a bizarre apple tree. Hanging from one of its branches was a metal tag engraved with the number: 038.

The tree had an unusual replication ability. Beneath it lay the time machine—one of the tomb's burial items.

After the time machine was discovered, numerous research teams were assembled. Thanks to the power of 038, they had no shortage of test subjects. The scientists ran countless tests but refrained from activating the machine recklessly, fearing that altering the past could unravel the future.

But there's always that one scientific madman who just has to be the first to eat the forbidden fruit.

That person swore up and down they wouldn't disturb the flow of history. But everyone knew the truth: the moment someone travels to the past, history is changed—no matter how subtle the difference, the future will inevitably be affected.

Still, the time machine was activated. Even knowing the risks, the scientists couldn't contain their curiosity.

And then… their worldview shattered.

The first person to travel back in time wreaked havoc. Theoretically, the future should've changed. But in reality, not a single thing shifted. Nothing at all.

Was the entire foundation of space-time theory flawed?

A wave of insanity swept through the scientists. Some even traveled back and annihilated humanity—yet the future remained the same.

Eventually, they realized this wasn't just a scientific problem anymore. It had crossed into the realm of the occult.

Some mysterious force was stabilizing the timeline. No matter how much they altered or erased the past, the future remained unaffected.

With that underlying assumption in place, the scientists grew bolder in their exploration of the time machine.

But the deeper they dug, the more terrifying truths surfaced.

The more they learned, the more fear took root.

For one, the time machine could only send people to a specific time period. That period was caught in a loop.

Like a twisted temporal river shaped into a Klein bottle, this recursive segment of history wasn't created by any shinobi from Itō Hidenaka's time. They simply didn't have that level of capability. In fact, no one had any idea who had twisted time like this. And the less they knew, the greater their fear grew.

Next, they discovered that within this looping fragment of time, individuals appeared who should not have existed in history. Some of them even managed to unify the world.

How could such remarkable figures leave no trace in the historical record?

Through constant, all-angle, 360-degree surveillance, the scientists finally made direct contact with the first time-travelers—an encounter that again shattered everything they thought they knew.

"Naruto? A manga world? Are you serious?!"

No one wanted to believe they were just fictional paper cutouts. And yet, nearly every time-traveler carried within their memories a hot-blooded manga called Naruto...

There were no words for this.

After their collective mental breakdown, the scientists quickly adapted to this new reality.What else could they do? Destroy the world?

In time, they discovered other fascinating truths. Most time-travelers ended up in Konoha. Even if they didn't start there, they found ways to interact with the village. Some of them carried strange items they called cheat abilities.

Those without cheats rarely lasted long. The arrogance they unconsciously radiated was even more unbearable than that of the Uchiha. They believed themselves clever and looked down on the "brainwashed" shinobi, but their so-called "knowledge of the future" always left trails. The shinobi would catch on.

And when they did, those travelers met a tragic end.

Those with cheats were a completely different story. They gained unimaginable power with ease. Beating Sasuke into the ground, kicking Naruto into submission, reigning supreme in the Ninja Academy by age seven, graduating as Kage-level monsters—they lived grand, unstoppable lives...

This group became the scientists' key research targets.

Their cheats were extraordinary—powerful enough to cause quantum leaps in technological advancement. The basic principles often defied explanation, but… who cared?

Itō Hidenaka said that while the current era may seem prosperous and cyberpunk as hell, it was built entirely on the foundation of those time-travelers' cheats. Some of these cheat systems were highly intelligent—completing missions would earn extravagant rewards. Others required no effort at all: just check in daily, and you'd be granted anything you wanted...

It had only been forty years since the time machine was unearthed, but the world had already undergone monumental changes.

Still... there's always a price for being late.

Perhaps because of the excessive time travel, unknown changes began to warp space-time. That Klein-bottle-shaped timeline gradually turned into a sieve. More and more time-travelers began slipping through...

At first, one time-traveler might show up after several loops.

Later, a new one arrived every loop.

Now, multiple time-travelers were appearing in the same cycle.

No one knew what it meant, but a sense of dread was spreading. Some scholars began calling for an end to the abuse of the time machine.

Unfortunately… it was already out of control.

Why should the first people to benefit from time-travel get to pull up the ladder behind them?

The ones who got rich ruining the environment now preach about sustainability?

You made all the money, and the rest of us have to pay the price?

Even a historian with integrity like Itō Hidenaka found himself moonlighting with the time machine.

"It's still holding together... one last job won't hurt,"—that's what everyone told themselves.

"That Klein-bottle timeline is obviously malfunctioning," Itō Hidenaka said, a troubled look on his face.

"It's not just the time-travelers anymore. Some of the natives have started mutating too. They've awakened strange abilities... but no matter what we do, we can't get a single piece of intel out of them…"

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Pls Drop some Power Stones

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