The forest crackled with unnatural energy. Trees bent as if whispering to each other in fear. Goku stood motionless in the clearing, his arms crossed, his brows furrowed—not from tension, but recognition. Something beneath the surface of this land stirred memories that weren't his… or at least, not his alone.
Naruto stepped beside him, followed by Sasuke. Neither spoke for a moment. The quiet wasn't peace. It was the kind that comes before a storm remembers where it left its thunder.
"I've never felt anything like this," Naruto muttered. "Not even during the Fourth War."
"It's not just chakra," Sasuke said, activating his Rinnegan. "It's deeper. Ancient. Like the land itself remembers something it's trying to show us."
The ground beneath them split suddenly, not with violence but with purpose. A soft pulse of golden-white light rose from the cracked earth. Goku's hand instinctively reached for it—but as his fingers brushed the glow, his body locked in place.
The forest vanished.
He stood on scorched land, skies burning red. The sun was fractured, split by some unnatural force. Around him, warriors fought—not from this era, not even from this world. Some wielded jutsu, others clashed with pure Haki, while beams of raw Ki sliced through the air. But what bound them all together was the same pulsing current: Energia.
Goku—no, Kakarot—was among them. Not just a witness, but a commander. Screams echoed around him as a towering entity moved across the sky like a storm given flesh. Tendrils of black flame lashed down from its form, devouring anything they touched.
A voice cried out beside him.
"Seal the Source! Before it takes the last gate!"
He turned—but the face was gone, blurred in memory. All that remained was the light. Bright, desperate, final.
He raised both hands. Energy gathered like a star being born. And then—
The forest returned with a gasp of air.
Goku collapsed to one knee, sweat pouring from his skin, his aura flickering with unstable bursts of light. Naruto caught him, alarmed.
"What did you see?" he asked.
Goku shook his head slowly. "Not a vision. A memory. A war... from before any of us were born. We fought something that wasn't from any world we knew. We didn't win. We sealed it."
Sasuke's expression darkened. "And someone's trying to unseal it now."
Above them, the wind groaned like a waking beast.
Far from the forest, the ocean boiled beneath a shattered moonlight.
Sukuna rose from the wreckage of his own domain, his regeneration slow, wounded pride deeper than the cuts across his flesh. Across the water, the bald man—Saitama—was already walking away, barefoot, unconcerned.
Luffy sat nearby on a piece of driftwood, grinning as he watched Sukuna seethe.
"You're tough, huh?" Luffy said, licking sauce from his fingers. "But not that tough."
Sukuna didn't answer. His hand trembled—not with fear, but with an ancient echo that had returned uninvited. It wasn't the punch. It was the awakening.
A pulse rose from the ocean floor—deep, older than cursed energy itself. The sea trembled. A single red eye opened in the abyss below and stared at him.
Sukuna took a step back.
"No," he whispered. "Not again…"
Deep underground, where cursed seals and high-grade jutsu clashed in chaotic frenzy, Gojo stood between columns of golden metal and arcane glass. Around him, a vault burned, but he looked only at the containment pod ahead. Inside, a sleeping boy shimmered with golden threads of Energia. His nameplate was old, faded.
PROJECT: KAKAROT
Behind Gojo, a figure moved through the flames—part man, part shadow, unrecognizable even to the Six Eyes.
"They'll awaken soon," the figure said. "And when they do, they'll remember everything."
Gojo turned his head, his smirk sharp despite the blood on his cheek.
"Good," he said. "Because I'm starting to remember too."
A moment passed. Then everything went dark.
For the briefest instant, Gojo saw himself—not in the vault, but on a battlefield like Goku's, younger, harsher, burning with a hatred he'd forgotten he once carried. He'd fought beside beings that made even Sukuna look mortal.
The memory snapped back.
He looked again at the boy in the pod.
"We were there," he whispered. "All of us. Gods, demons, pirates, shinobi… we were all part of the first war."
He clenched his fists.
"And someone sealed the truth with it."
The Nine-Tails stirred behind the seal within Naruto. The Beast's form shimmered and shifted, flickering with instability. Naruto pressed his hands to the gate.
"Talk to me. What's happening to you?"
The Beast's eyes opened slowly. They glowed with dim, ancient sorrow.
"I've lived through many wars, brat. But only once have I felt this… pull. The last time was before chakra had a name."
"You remember the first war?"
"No," the Beast rumbled. "I was born because of it. Created when the world tried to recover from what it couldn't understand. Energia shaped us… then someone tried to claim it all."
"Blackbeard?" Naruto asked.
The Beast shook its head.
"He's just a vessel. The real monster sleeps behind the Gate."
"What gate?"
"You'll know it when it opens."
And with that, the Beast faded into unconsciousness.
A fleet of black-sailed ships rose from the mist like a ghost returning from death. At the helm of the largest stood Blackbeard, eyes blazing with stolen power, the Yami Yami no Mi's shadowy vortex swirling around him. Five glowing orbs floated in the air behind him—each pulsing with a different energy: Ki, Haki, Chakra, Cursed Energy… and something else. Something older.
Below, the sea began to twist unnaturally, forming a whirlpool of light and dark.
Beside him, a tall, cloaked figure stepped forward.
"They're awakening," the figure said. "Some of them remember what they were."
"Let them," Blackbeard growled. "When the Gate opens, memory won't save them. Power will."
He raised his hand.
The fifth orb shuddered—unbalanced, primal, hungry.