Sarutobi Mirai has a lot to live up to as the granddaughter of Konoha’s Third Hokage and the daughter of Sarutobi Asuma, the hero who gave up his life during the Great Ninja War. But as everyone continues to expect great things from her, she struggles to separate herself from her family’s legacy and find her own way.
Mirai’s journey escorting Kakashi and Guy takes an unexpected turn when their route is cut off by a massive landslide. While stopped at a village, Mirai meets Tatsumi, a young girl whose mother has died. She reveals to Mirai that she’s in this particular village because there’s a hot spring nearby that can bring the dead back to life. Mirai decides to join Tatsumi for a chance to meet her father, whom she only knows from the memories of others. What she finds is anything but the miracle hot spring she was hoping for—instead, she discovers the very cult that killed her father!
Masashi Kishimoto (岸本斉史 Kishimoto Masashi) is a Japanese manga artist, well known for creating the manga series Naruto. His younger twin brother, Seishi Kishimoto, is also a manga artist and creator of the manga series O-Parts Hunter (666 Satan) and Blazer Drive. Two of his former assistants, Osamu Kajisa (Tattoo Hearts) and Yuuichi Itakura (Hand's), have also gone on to moderate success following their work on Naruto.
Kishimoto's first work as a manga artist was Karakuri (カラクリ?), which he submitted to Shueisha in 1995. This earned him the Weekly Shōnen Jump's monthly "Hop Step Award" in 1996, granted to promising new manga artists. This was followed in 1997 by a pilot version of Naruto (NARUTO-ナルト-), published in Akamaru Jump Summer. In 1998, Kishimoto premiered as a Weekly Shōnen Jump artist with a serialized version of Karakuri in Weekly Shōnen Jump, but it proved unpopular and was canceled soon after. In 1999, a serialized version of Naruto began publication in Weekly Shōnen Jump and quickly became a hit.