The clone had his old gamertag: .
He never deleted the file. Sometimes, late at night, he’d boot up the Wii just to fight himself from 2009. And every time, he won a little faster.
But when he tried to load it, the screen glitched. Static bled into the Konoha backdrop. Then a message appeared in pixelated Japanese:
The save data repaired itself. A final message appeared: naruto shippuden gekitou ninja taisen special save data
Leo pressed A.
Leo realized the truth. The save data wasn’t just a record of unlocks. It was a ghost in the machine—a snapshot of his teenage skill, preserved like a curse. Gekitō Ninja Taisen! Special had a hidden feature: if you cleared Survival Mode without losing a round, the game recorded your playstyle into a secret “Legacy Data” file. He’d done that. He’d just forgotten.
It’s who you used to be.
「あなたはもっと強くなりましたか？」 ( “Have you become stronger?” )
Because in Gekitō Ninja Taisen! Special , the strongest opponent isn’t Pain or Itachi.
On the twenty-third match, he won. The clone flickered, smiled with Naruto’s face, and bowed. The clone had his old gamertag:
“What the hell?” Leo muttered, gripping the Wii remote.
So he stopped spamming Rasengan. He started using tactical substitutions, guard-cancels, and feints—techniques the clone had never learned because the meta back then didn’t exist. He played less like a tier-chaser and more like a real shinobi.
「特別なデータ：伝説は続く」 ( “Special Data: The legend continues.” ) And every time, he won a little faster
A decade after the Wii’s servers went dark, a former champion discovers a corrupted save file from Naruto Shippūden: Gekitō Ninja Taisen! Special —and unlocking it forces him to fight the ghost of his past self. Story:
Leo hadn’t touched his Wii in eleven years. But when his younger brother found the dust-caked console in their parents’ attic, curiosity got the better of them. The system whirred to life, and there it was—buried in the System Memory—a single save file for Naruto Shippūden: Gekitō Ninja Taisen! Special .