Chapter 496: The Reincarnation Hall
"Let me go -- !!"
The scream tore through the hall and echoed off every surface.
"Please -- ! I'm already dead! I've already paid for what I did! I don't want to become an animal -- !"
A tall, gaunt figure was thrashing with everything he had, but four Velociraptors had him pinned -- one on each limb -- their claws sunk into his soul-body, so that every attempt to struggle drove fresh agony through him.
His name was Kakuzu.
In life, he had been a jonin in the Hidden Mist's interrogation division. His skin was a sickly, near-translucent pale, his frame thin as bundled reeds. Now, from those deep-sunken eye sockets, transparent tears -- the kind that only souls can shed -- were pouring freely down his face.
The Reincarnation Hall.
Naruto had never actually named this place. To him, it was simply "where souls get processed." But the First Hokage and the others had needed a way to distinguish between different areas of the Pure Land, so they had named it themselves. The name fit well enough.
The hall was vast and open, its walls suffused with a slow-moving golden light -- the visible texture of the rules that held this space together. At the center of the floor, a large circular array was etched into the ground, its lines turning in a slow, continuous rotation. Around it, a series of swirling portal gates stood in a ring, each a different color.
White: the path to the Human Realm. Silver: the Asura Realm. Gray-white: the Animal Realm. And several others in deeper, darker shades that had not yet been opened -- said to lead to places of harsher consequence.
Hashirama stood before the luminous display that Naruto had set up for them -- a terminal of sorts. Press your hand to its surface, hold the name of a soul in mind, and it would surface everything about that soul. Every act committed in life. Every person harmed. Every piece of the record that formed the basis of judgment.
Right now, Hashirama's expression was not good.
"Please... I'm begging you... I really don't want to become an animal..."
Kakuzu's wailing continued, raw and unrelenting, the kind of sound that made the back of the neck prickle. Hashirama frowned, and despite himself, looked over at the figure pinned to the floor.
Crying that hard... could it be... he's not actually that bad?
With that thought in mind, he pressed his palm to the terminal's surface and held the name in his mind.
Kakuzu.
The display flickered, then bloomed with information.
"..."
In the few seconds it took Hashirama to read what appeared there, his eyes grew steadily wider.
The screen held the record of Kakuzu's life -- dense, line after line, and every line was soaked in blood.
He saw how Kakuzu had used the access his position in the interrogation division gave him to fabricate charges against ordinary shinobi and civilians from his own village -- for no reason beyond being in a bad mood and wanting something to do.
He saw how Kakuzu had dragged those innocent people into the interrogation rooms and subjected them to every cruelty he could devise. Not to extract information. Not because any mission required it. Simply because he enjoyed watching people suffer.
He saw the eyes of those people. Fear. Despair. The blank incomprehension of why is this happening to me.
He saw the expression on Kakuzu's face during those moments. Twisted. Lit up with excitement.
He saw --
"..."
Hashirama wrenched his gaze away from the screen.
He felt ill. He did not have words for what he had just read. The worst curse he had ever used in his life surfaced in his mind, unbidden and entirely deserved.
What kind of creature was this.
"You have nothing to fear."
A voice spoke -- inhuman in its register, stripped of any warmth.
It came from the Velociraptor holding Kakuzu down. It lowered its head, looking at the weeping soul beneath it. "The nature of your crimes is classified as sadistic killing."
Kakuzu's crying stopped.
He raised his head, the tears still raw on his face, confusion replacing terror for a moment. "Sadistic... killing?"
"Correct."
The Velociraptor gave a single nod. "Which means it is not the Animal Realm."
A flash of something like hope crossed Kakuzu's face.
"It is the Asura Realm."
That hope went out like a flame pinched between two fingers.
"What... what does that mean...?"
"In the Asura Realm --" The Velociraptor paused. Its claws pressed down slightly, drawing a choked grunt of pain from beneath it. "-- you will experience, in full, every instance of suffering you inflicted on every innocent person during your life."
"All of it."
"And only after that will you reincarnate as an animal."
"What -- what?!"
Kakuzu's eyes went wide to their absolute limit. Every trace of color drained from his already pale face. "No -- !! NO -- !!"
He erupted into full thrashing, arms and legs kicking wildly, driving every fragment of strength he had left against the four bodies holding him.
"I know I was wrong! I genuinely know I was wrong -- !"
"Please! Give me one more chance -- !"
"I'll atone! I'll do anything -- !"
The Velociraptors ignored him completely.
In perfect, wordless coordination, all four released their grip at the same moment. Then -- thud.
One of them lowered its head and drove Kakuzu's soul-body cleanly through the air with a single motion, straight into the silver swirling portal.
"No -- !!!!"
His scream cut off the instant the silver light made contact. His silhouette was swallowed whole and gone.
Hashirama stood where he was, looking at the silver portal still turning in its slow rotation. He did not speak for a long time.
At last, he let out a breath -- deep and long and heavy.
"Looks like things are going smoothly."
Naruto's voice filled the hall.
He appeared at the center of the room from nothing, a black Yomotsu Hirasaka gateway closing quietly behind him. Directly at his side, Satsuki -- composed as always, her expression giving nothing away to anyone who was not Naruto or her parents.
And the last figure through the gateway: a silver-haired man in a face mask, one eye hidden behind his headband's forehead protector.
Kakashi.
His steps were slightly unsteady, the way someone moves when they have not fully absorbed something enormous that just happened to them. His one visible eye moved slowly around the unfamiliar space, taking it in.
And then it stopped.
"Those are...?"
Kakashi's gaze had landed on the group standing to one side of the hall. The dark-haired man in the long robe with the natural, open face who was already waving in his direction. The silver-haired man with the sharp expression who was studying him without a word.
"Lord First...?" His voice had a slight drift to it. "And... the Second...?!" Something crossed Kakashi's face that could only be described as seeing a ghost. Which was, in the most literal possible sense, exactly what was happening.
Historical figures. Legends. The two faces carved in permanent stone on the Hokage Monument -- and they were standing directly in front of him. One of them was waving.
"Oh?" Hashirama's eyes lit up. He crossed the distance in three quick steps, his expression radiating the particular delight of someone who has not had new company in quite some time.
"You're a shinobi from the living Konoha?"
He was already smiling. "Ha! Wonderful -- allow me to introduce myself! I am the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju!" He paused and gestured at the space around them. "Currently residing in the afterlife."
"..."
Kakashi opened his mouth and found he had no idea how to respond to any of that.
Currently residing in the afterlife. How was a person supposed to follow up on that.
Tobirama stood nearby, gave his brother a look of profound exasperation, and said nothing.
Too much, he thought privately. Then he turned to Kakashi.
"Who are you? What makes you someone who could be brought here from the living world?"
Before Kakashi could answer, Naruto stepped in helpfully. "This is the sensei of my old team, Kakashi Hatake. Most of the people who mattered most to Sensei... are already gone." A brief pause. "So I brought him here to see them."
Tobirama nodded slowly. Then: "One more thing, since you are a shinobi from the present day -- what has become of Hiruzen?"
Hiruzen. The name landed and Kakashi's visible eye shifted slightly. That would be... the Third Hokage?
"Lord Third has stepped down from his duties as Hokage," Kakashi replied. "He's currently in the village, living out a peaceful retirement."
"Is that so." Tobirama gave a slight nod.
He had fulfilled his purpose. Not fallen on a battlefield, not taken by war, but carried off by the ordinary passage of years in old age.
For a shinobi... an almost unreasonably fortunate end. But a good one, all the same.
He had been about to ask something else -- about the village, about the people he had known, about everything that had happened after his death. But when he looked at Kakashi again, a different question had surfaced quietly in his thoughts.
This Konoha shinobi was composed, respectful, appropriate in everything he said -- clearly someone who understood who he and Hashirama were and held proper regard for it.
But that chakra.
Tobirama's brow creased, almost imperceptibly.
There was something about Kakashi's chakra signature that did not sit right with him.
Cold. Extreme. Carrying a faint, unmistakable quality that he found deeply unsettling.
It was identical to Sharingan chakra.
But this man was not an Uchiha. How could that possibly be?
He set the question aside for the moment. Something else had come to mind.
The last time he and Hashirama had been pulled from death, it had been by that man called Orochimaru using the Reanimation Jutsu -- used as weapons against the Leaf in a direct attack on the village. That entire episode had given Hiruzen considerable trouble.
But throughout all of it -- from beginning to end -- he had not once sensed the presence of a particular person.
Shimura Danzo.
Not a trace of his chakra. There was a strong possibility he was already dead.
Tobirama exhaled quietly. When there was a moment, he would find Danzo's soul.
He made the decision inwardly, with calm finality.
He wanted to ask him about the village. About how things had turned out.
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