Chapter 161: First Meeting, Naruto Uzumaki
"Is this… really Konoha?"
If it truly was, Naruto wanted to sprint straight to the Hokage Building, grab Tsunade by the collar, and demand to know what she had been doing.
But as he stared at the cracked walls and sagging rooftops around him, a cold premonition seeped into his chest.
Behind Naruto, Jiraiya's expression turned reluctant and heavy.
This was not the Konoha they remembered.
The village had been worn down before, yes, but it had still been alive. Even when buildings were damaged, people filled the streets. There was noise, there was warmth, there was movement.
What stood before them now, after more than two years away, was silent. Desolate.
Many shops had their shutters down. Some looked temporarily closed, others looked like they had not opened in ages. Dust clung to their entrances. Cobwebs sagged across signs and doorways. The few businesses still operating looked no better than the struggling storefronts of the Land of Waves.
Even the vendors felt wrong.
Their faces were impatient, flat, exhausted. The cheer Naruto remembered, the kind of warmth that used to flare up when familiar customers walked in, was gone.
Worse, some villagers did not even bother to stand.
They lay on porches with ashen faces, staring into empty air as people passed by. Their eyes looked like they were already dead, bodies left behind while their minds drifted somewhere far away.
Naruto and Jiraiya had seen eyes like that before.
The eyes of people who had lost hope and accepted the world as a prison they would never escape.
Sakura walked through it all as if it were nothing.
The Sakura Naruto remembered would stop to help injured kids, would support an elderly villager struggling to walk, would fuss and scold and care in her own stubborn way.
Now she stepped past collapsed walls and sprawled bodies with a casual, practiced indifference, like she was passing a stone on the roadside. No surprise. No disgust. No urgency.
Naruto could not hold it in.
Even with Jiraiya close behind him, even with the Perverted Sage's presence like a shield, Naruto's confusion boiled over as they turned a corner and saw more villagers lying in the dirt. He lowered his voice, but the strain in it was obvious.
"Sakura… is this what Konoha is now?" he asked. "Is it all Tsunade's doing? Have you gotten used to this?"
Naruto stopped in the middle of the street, fists clenched so hard his knuckles whitened. The scenery felt like steel scraping across his heart.
For Naruto, Konoha was not just a village.
Even after the cold stares of his childhood, even after the cruel whispers and the fear, there had still been people in the Dai clan who lit up his world. He had always wanted to repay that light. He had always wanted to protect this place, to build it up, to believe that Tsunade would keep it safe.
But what was this?
This did not look like a home.
The damage did not even look like neglect from time. It looked like someone had fought in the streets, shattered everything, and then simply walked away. Cracks cut across the roads like scars. Roofs collapsed like broken ribs.
And it was not just one street.
Naruto had already seen dozens of streets like this on the way in.
Sakura blinked at him.
"Huh? Where?" she said, genuinely puzzled. "Konoha's always been good. Actually, it's been getting better and better lately."
Naruto's brow tightened. "Is that really true, Sakura?"
"Of course," she replied, still confused. "Why would you ask that?"
She wore a tattered white lab coat, and the glass tubes hanging from her moved with a soft clinking sound every time she shifted. She turned around and walked backward for a few steps, peering at him as if he had asked why the sky was blue.
Naruto liked Sakura. He had missed her. Seeing her stronger, seeing her confident, seeing her alive, that should have made him happy. Sakura and Sasuke were his best friends. He wanted them to grow. Anyone who could not be happy for that was the one who had become twisted.
But the village around them was dying in front of his eyes, and Sakura's confusion felt wrong.
Naruto held his ground and asked the question again, slower, heavier.
"Then why are the houses like this?" he demanded. "Why is everyone living in ruins?"
Sakura shrugged. The gesture was almost careless.
"Oh, that," she said. "Someone fought here. Nobody fixed it. So it stayed like this."
Naruto's blood surged. "What do you mean, someone fought here? Sakura, this is Konoha, our village. Someone wrecked the streets and you're acting like it's nothing?"
"So?" Sakura tilted her head. "When things reach a certain point, feelings do not change anything."
Naruto took a step forward, anger rising sharp in his throat. "You…"
A hand came down on his shoulder from behind, firm and heavy.
Jiraiya.
The same man who joked too much, who leered too openly, who acted like the world was always a game, now pressed Naruto down with the weight of something real. His expression was solemn, his palm steady.
"Did you already forget what our training was for?" Jiraiya asked quietly. "Naruto. When you face something unfamiliar, you do not charge in blind. You understand it first.
"I do not believe Tsunade or the village became this without a reason. Whatever the truth is, it is better to hear it first. Do you understand?"
Naruto's teeth clenched. His anger did not vanish, but it tightened into something controlled.
"…I understand, you lecherous immortal."
It was not just advice. It was a warning.
If Konoha had been occupied by something frightening, then Naruto and Jiraiya had just stepped into an enemy's nest. A careless outburst could get them discovered and crushed before they learned anything at all.
Naruto was no longer the boy who charged forward with nothing but guts. Two years of training had carved patience into him, even when his heart wanted to burn.
He turned back to Sakura and forced a smile that did not reach his eyes.
"I have not been back in almost three years," he said. "So Sakura, tell me what happened. Otherwise I might do something stupid again."
Sakura nodded, bright and casual. "Sure. Nobody's running away. I'll tell you while we walk."
She started ahead, talking as if she were guiding him through a festival.
In Sakura's words, Konoha was the best place in the world. Opportunities were everywhere. Konoha today was hundreds of times better than it used to be. Everyone had what they wanted. Everyone had their dreams within reach.
Her tone was proud, almost glowing.
But the closer Naruto and Jiraiya got to the Hokage Building, the more the world contradicted her.
The streets grew emptier. The ruins grew heavier. Shops that should have been packed, positioned on prime roads near the Hokage's office, were either boarded up or collapsed into rubble.
Only a few villagers remained, moving like ghosts.
They ate strange, pure white food, then lay back down, staring upward with vacant eyes.
They did not look alive.
They looked like bodies performing the minimum requirements for existence.
Naruto and Jiraiya exchanged a glance, their suspicion hardening into certainty.
Something had gone horribly wrong inside Konoha.
And they could not ignore it.
Sakura suddenly stopped.
She stood in front of a huge ruined building, its frame broken and jagged like a snapped bone. Then she turned, and her head tilted at an angle no normal person should have been able to manage.
Her smile was light. Her eyes were sharp.
"By the way, Naruto," she said, "you do not know, do you? Everyone's changed a lot lately."
"Huh?"
"While you were gone, everyone was racing to become better," Sakura said. "Nobody wanted to fall behind you or Sasuke."
At the name Sasuke, Naruto's expression darkened.
That name was a thorn lodged in the heart of their generation.
The defection had left scars no one liked to touch. A classmate, a teammate, someone they had fought beside, had walked away into darkness and never looked back. Even if Sasuke had been arrogant, even if he had been difficult, he had still been one of them.
People could understand why he chose hatred.
But understanding did not make it hurt less.
The ones most shattered by it were Naruto and Sakura, because Team 7 had been real. It had been irreplaceable. No new teammate could ever replace Sasuke's place.
Even if Sasuke swore he would kill them someday, Naruto and Sakura had no other answer.
They would bring him back.
In their own way.
Naruto exhaled, steadying himself. "Let's not talk about that," he said. "I'll bring him back."
Sakura's smile softened as if she was relieved. She brushed her hair back and looked at him in the middle of the ruins.
"I still have a lot to say," she said, "but I think everyone's getting impatient. So let them tell you themselves. Jiraiya can wait outside for a bit."
"Them?" Naruto frowned. "And the Perverted Sage should wait outside?"
Who was she talking about? Where were they?
Before Naruto could press her, Sakura slipped into the shadows of the broken structure and clapped her hands once.
In that instant, the world blurred.
The Perverted Sage's shout behind him shattered into static, like a voice crushed by a wall of noise.
Naruto's stomach lurched, a dizzying sensation like being ripped out of one place and thrown into another.
He blinked hard.
When his vision cleared, Jiraiya was gone.
Naruto stood in a different space, dim and wide, with a huge round table like a banquet table at its center.
Figures surrounded it.
Many of them felt familiar.
Their voices definitely were.
"Naruto, welcome home!"
"Long time no see, Naruto, it's been almost three years!"
"I look forward to your guidance from here on out!"
"Everyone…"
Naruto's mouth opened. No sound came out.
Because the scene in front of him was wrong.
So wrong that his brain refused to accept it at first.
In his memories, his classmates had been different, loud, quiet, proud, awkward, kind, annoying, but they had been human. Friends who fought, argued, made up, and could be trusted with your back in battle.
What stood before him now looked like a gathering of reconstructed nightmares.
There were bodies boldly exposed, braided with flowers and thorns, spilling blossoms and spores with every movement.
There were figures like pure shadow, entirely black, clinging to corners like living silhouettes.
There were pale forms whose faces were almost indistinguishable, with only their eyes shining like brilliant discs of light.
And there were others Naruto could not describe at all. Shapes that made something deep in the mind scream that they were not meant to be seen.
Sakura stood among them like this was a normal reunion. Like this was a class party. Like Naruto was the strange one for hesitating.
Naruto's head throbbed, as if heat was building behind his eyes.
A heavy presence approached him.
"Hey," a voice said, too familiar, far too cheerful. "It's been over two years. Do not tell me you forgot me, Kiba Inuzuka. You know, the one with the dog."
A massive, furry werewolf stepped forward.
Its beastlike face still carried faint traces of the human boy Naruto remembered, but the rest of him was an overwhelming animal shape, towering, broad, and grinning.
Kiba spoke casually, as if he was showing off a new jacket.
"Judging from that face, you probably have no idea I completed my strongest secret technique and became one with my partner," Kiba said. "It's normal to be shocked. We've all changed a lot."
Naruto swallowed. His throat felt dry. "I do not think I changed that much."
"There were changes," Kiba replied, voice steady. "Not too many, sure. But if you want a certain path, you pay a price."
He lifted his clawed hand, almost proud.
"Compared to the old human body, this feels freer," Kiba said. "There's nothing wrong with being human. It just… did not match my soul."
He kept talking, and more voices joined in.
Words Naruto understood, spoken in tones Naruto recognized, spilling out of mouths that should not have existed.
They talked about liberation, sacrifice, alignment, society, instincts, and identity.
The room's light and shadow twisted together as the bizarre bodies shifted.
Naruto's skin crawled.
Chakra carried a person's imprint.
And the chakra in this room, the scents in the air, the signatures brushing against his senses, told him the truth.
These were not strangers.
They were his classmates. His childhood friends.
They were people he had laughed with. People he had fought with.
So why?
What happened in three years to turn them into this?
Naruto could not speak. He could only stare, mouth open, heart pounding, at the grotesque carnival of familiar voices and unfamiliar shapes.
Then a gentle male voice cut through the noise.
"Alright," the man said calmly. "That is enough. You are putting too much pressure on Naruto."
The room went silent.
Not gradually. Not reluctantly.
Instantly, as if the sound itself had been erased.
Behind the strange bodies, a man stood up from his seat and began walking toward Naruto.
He moved with an easy confidence, like someone strolling through his own home.
When he stepped into clear view, Naruto saw a gentle smile and eyes that felt far too deep.
The man extended his hand toward him, palm open.
"Hello, Naruto Uzumaki," he said. "I am Sosuke Aizen, Konoha's new generation technical advisor."
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