Naruto Retsuden: Naruto Uzumaki and the Spiral Destiny

is an original story written by Jun Esaka and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto.

Prologue
In the Land of Stairs there is a hill whose top has been burning for allegedly four thousand years due to an enormous amount of natural gas underneath it. In the past the Sixth Hokage, together with Ikkyū Madoka, made a deal with the Land of Stairs to supply the promote the development of its stagnant economy. Now, a decade later, the inhabitants of the Land are in turmoil for the visit of the Seventh Hokage.

As Naruto Uzumaki is being interviewed by journalists, Yanaru Aze, an assassin that has been posing as a member of the Hokage's personal escort for the past three days, infiltrates the crowd of attendees with three copies created with the Shadow Clone Technique, whom he dubbed "Alpha", "Beta", and "Gamma". He was hired and given a ray gun to kill Naruto, which, unbeknownst to him and the other people in the crowd, is actually a disguised Shikamaru Nara, which replaced the real Naruto through the Transformation Technique for safety purposes.

The three copies are dealt with by the other members of the Hokage's personal escort: "Alpha" is swiftly stopped and hit to the neck by the former Hokage Kakashi Hatake; soon afterwards, "Beta" is choked by Sakura Haruno; finally, "Gamma" readies to strike, giving credit to the rumours according to which Naruto suffers from an unknown illness that weakened him almost to the level of a civilian, but falls under the illusion of Sasuke Uchiha, and subsequently vanishes.

Later, the disguised Shikamaru and the members of the escort head to the seaplane where the real Naruto was tied by Shikamaru with a reinforced rope (made with concentrated chakra by the Scientific Ninja Weapons Team) so as to prevent him from participating to the visit in person. Hearing about the attempt by the now-arrested assassin, Naruto is saddened by the fact that "his condition" requires him to be protected by multiple people, which he would not have needed before.

Chapter 1
It all started six months ago. As Naruto was working incessantly to catch up with his bureaucratic duties, he started feeling an intense pain in his chest when trying to perform the Shadow Clone Technique. At that time, both him and Shikamaru thought it was due to overworking and sleep debt, so they did not give too much attention to it.

A month later, as Naruto was about to use the Earth Release to assist his son in the latter's training, the symptoms acted up again, this time manifesting as an accelerated heartbeat. He hid it and said he had to go due to an errand, much to Boruto's disappointment. As he rushed to the village's Old City, he realised he would not have reached the hospital, so he entered an abandoned aviary he found on the path. There, the symptoms slowly weakened, and Kurama revealed to Naruto that Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki also suffered a similar condition during his stay in the Land of Redaku, but that then he somehow recovered from it.

In the present, Naruto meets with Sakura, Shikamaru, Kakashi and Sasuke in a secret room in the back of Tami's shop, where he reveals the illness has manifested other three times since they came back from the Land of Stairs. After a long discussion, they decide to send Kakashi to the Land of Redaku to find out more about the time Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki spent there and possibly learn about a cure. He departs the following morning.

In the evening, Shikamaru informs Naruto that the Cultural Institute, an organisation based in the Land of Stairs founded by the Five Great Shinobi Countries after the war, is deciphering per his request old documents regarding the Sage of Six Paths. According to the first batch of information that was acquired from them, it is very likely that Hagoromo recovered from his illness in Redaku's Astronomy Research Institute.

The two then wonder who might have sent Yanaru Aze to assassinate Naruto. They cannot ask him directly since he committed suicide. They suspect of Furie Kanhen, the director of the Cultural Institute, who might have wanted to worsen the Stairs-Konoha relations so as to keep Konoha's funds invested in his institute instead of in the energy sector. They resolve to send Sasuke to investigate him.

When Naruto leaves his office, it is already the following day's morning. He climbs on top of the Hokage Rock and watches over the village. In that moment, he has another seizure. As he crawls on the ground, he is reached by Sasuke, which states his intention to go to the Astronomy Research Institute and try to find out a possible cure to Naruto's condition instead of going to the Land of Stairs and investigate Furie Kunhen because he prioritises Naruto's health. Naruto vehemently disagrees, but Sasuke, through an illusion, manages to slip past him and head towards Redaku. Immediately after, Sakura arrives on the spot, and tells Naruto that, according to the latter's medical analysis' results, his illness is due to his Chakra Pathway System being afflicted, a condition which could potentially lead to him not being able to use chakra anymore. She then proceeds to follow her husband.

When Naruto finally gets home, he notices in the entrance a pair of shoes he does not recognize, meaning they have a guest. It is none other than Orochimaru.

Chapter 2
Hinata Hyūga let Orochimaru in without worrying about his possible danger because of the good relationship between their sons. Also, he apparently played a lot with Himawari Uzumaki and is now nonchalantly having tea in the Uzumaki family's kitchen, much to Naruto's disbelief. Having overheard Naruto's condition thanks to his own snake-like hearing, Orochimaru wants to propose Naruto to become the tester for his latest invention: a pair of glasses that are able to replicate dōjutsu. He has already "stored" Hinata's Byakugan in the glasses earlier during his visit, meaning that now, wearing those glasses and pressing a switch, Naruto can activate and deactivate the Byakugan vision, although Hinata cannot use hers when this function is on. Naruto tries the glasses, but his brain is rapidly overflown with too much visual input, so he has to switch them off.

After Orochimaru leaves, Naruto trains a bit with the glasses in order to get used to the Byakugan vision, but he gets quickly exhausted. Hinata knows that something is off with her husband's Chakra Pathway System, but when she asks him about it, he pivots and asks her about how to get his brain accustomed to the Byakugan vision. She is not very good at explaining it, so she gives Naruto her cousin's training journal, which contains details about the Byakugan training. Apparently the key is not wasting time focusing on every single intersection of the Pathway System, but instead on its entirety, trying to prevent the opponent's next move.

Naruto starts training daily and slowly manages to bear the Byalugan vision a little longer. One day, while using the glasses, he notices an odd chakra activity in the Old City. When he reaches its source, he finds an old shack with a secret room. There, he is attacked by a woman who thinks he is there to steal her research. After a brief skirmish and clarifications, she introduces herself as Chihare Amano, an astrophysicist from the Cultural Institute that borrowed that shack from her boss, Furie Kanhen, to have a place where to focus on her experiments.

Chihare's research revolves around creating a device that turns chakra into anything. Her secret lab is full of glass capsules containing liquefied chakra that she experiments on to find a way to artificially reproduce chakra's nature transformation. Out of the shack, she also has a prototype of a gas-fuelled motor vehicle. She posits her research could potentially result in finding an alternative fuel and solve the fuel shortage that forces Konoha to buy gas from the Lands of Stairs and Wind. She and Naruto make a deal to use the latter's glasses to more quickly check the liquefied chakra's reaction (or lack thereof) to the experiments.

After Naruto is done assessing Chihare's latest experiments, the two talk about the possible usages in the medic field of the technology Chihare is developing, but they are suddenly interrupted by a drone that storms in crushing the roof. Noticing a countdown on it, Naruto realizes the drone is carrying a bomb and quickly gets outside with Chihare. After the explosion, other seven drones arrive, and the two are forced to escape riding the motor vehicle prototype, which, as Naruto soon finds out, cannot stop unless it runs out of gas.

The drones fire rays at the two, which reminds Naruto of the ray gun Yanaru Aze was about to use to attack him. He does not want to hurt civilians, so he rides the prototype to the train station. When he busts the gate to get in the station, two pieces of it hit two drones, downing them. Subsequently, Naruto manages to avoid civilians and get on the railways, but is distracted by a seizure and trips on a turning rail, which causes him and Chihare to be projected forward. He manages to grab on a protrusion and holds Chihare to himself, but a drone finds them and is about to fire at point-blank range. Before it can shoot, the drone is destroyed by Yamato's Wood Release, and Naruto and Chihare are saved.