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 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.