He dragged every last scrap of chakra out of himself.The Rinnegan in his eyes blazed with a brilliance it had never shown before, and every Truth-Seeking Ball flew to the front of his body, compressing into the strongest defense he could possibly form.
"Night... Guy!!!"
In the real world, countless people mouthed that name along with him.But on the battlefield in the sky, Might Guy had already vanished.
He became a crimson dragon that stretched from earth to heaven.Burning everything. Offering everything. Charging straight at the despair that had to be stopped.
"Guy, I acknowledge you!""In taijutsu, I, Naruto, declare you the strongest!"
The blood-red dragon crashed into the black Truth-Seeking barrier, into that sphere that seemed to gather the power of all creation itself.The moment they collided, the world went silent.
No sound. No wind. No echo.It was as if all noise had been devoured by that single impact.
And then-the beginning of a new world seemed to arrive in the form of destruction.
BOOM!!!
A white light so intense it could not be looked at swallowed the entire sky.Across the real ninja world, people shut their eyes or threw up their hands to shield them, their hearts pounding so hard it felt like their chests might burst.
When the light finally began to fade, everyone looked up again almost at the same time.At the center of the battlefield was a crater so enormous and so deep it looked bottomless.
Naruto hovered on one side of it.His breathing was a little unsteady now, and the purple ripples of his Rinnegan still held the aftertaste of shock-and something rarer still, the shadow of fear.
On the opposite side, the red steam was gone.The life that had burned so fiercely was now reduced to a weak, trembling ember.
Might Guy lay there in silence, his body charred black, his life force so faint it seemed as though the next breeze might snuff it out.He had lost.And yet he had won.
With his life as the price, he had proved something to the entire ninja world.That even a mortal body could reach the realm of gods.That conviction, youth, and a single burning will could force despair itself to retreat.
His faith, his sacrifice, and that final blazing moment became eternal from then on.
"Teacher Guy... you won."
Naruto's voice broke the battlefield's dead silence.It traveled through the sky and into every corner of the real world, startling everyone who had still been trapped in the sorrow of Guy's sacrifice.
Won?What did he mean by that?
Under countless stunned gazes, Naruto slowly raised his left arm.Then, with a movement that sent chills through everyone watching, he dug his fingers into the flesh of that arm and gouged out an eye.
It was a Sharingan.Or rather, what was left of one.The eye had already gone dull and gray-white, its light extinguished completely. The pattern of three tomoe could still be seen, but only faintly, like a corpse that had forgotten how to breathe.
"Izanagi..." Naruto looked at the ruined eye in his palm and spoke to himself in a calm, almost absent-minded voice."A forbidden technique of the Uchiha clan. Burn one three-tomoe Sharingan, and reality can be turned into a dream. Even death can be rewritten."
He paused, and a cold, mocking curve touched his lips."We really ought to thank that old bastard Danzo. That old man had Sharingan implanted all over one arm. Back then, it took me quite a while to deal with him."
"Luckily, he let me learn this secret before he died. Otherwise..." He glanced at the crater below and gave a soft, almost amused laugh. "Today might really have been dangerous."
The words fell like heavenly thunder.Sharingan? On his arm?Danzo? Shimura Danzo?Izanagi?
The entire real world erupted in disbelief."So that attack just now really did kill him once?""He actually died-and then rewrote it with a forbidden Uchiha technique?""How does Danzo have Sharingan at all? And why would they be in his arm?""The Uchiha have a secret technique like that?"
Every question hit like a hammer.Every answer only made the fear worse.
In the sky, Naruto casually tossed the dead Sharingan aside as if it were no more than a broken pebble.Then he looked in the direction Sasuke had fled.
Something flickered in his eyes.For a moment, it almost seemed as though he might give chase.But in the end, he did not move.
"I've burned too much energy today," he murmured, as if reassuring himself-or perhaps indulging in a game of cat and mouse."No rush. Next time... I'll wipe all of you out completely."
The next instant, his body turned into a streak of golden light and vanished into the horizon.
The scene above shifted.It no longer followed the clash of the strongest.Instead, it turned toward the countless brutal battlefields spread across the ninja world.
Plains. Forests. Valleys. Riverbanks.Wherever the eye could reach, Allied Shinobi Forces and White Zetsu were locked in desperate slaughter.
Ninjutsu flashed like storms of colored fire.Explosive tags roared. Steel met flesh. People screamed. People died.Every second, lives were erased, and the true cruelty of war was laid bare with merciless clarity.
But the shinobi fighting within that future knew nothing of the greater disaster that had already unfolded.They did not know that the Five Kage-all hope, all authority, all symbolic strength-had already been wiped out.They did not know that Uchiha Sasuke, the one man who could still stand against the World-Destroyer, had fled the battlefield gravely wounded.They did not know that even Might Guy, who had bloomed into the most brilliant lotus through the sacrifice of his life, still could not overturn the end that awaited them.
At last, the images faded.The sky became silent again.And the real world was left in a deathly stillness that seemed even heavier than before.
Hiruzen Sarutobi's face had gone chalk-white.He knew exactly what Naruto had meant.Danzo's bandaged arm. The Sharingan buried beneath it. The secret no one was supposed to know.
But how had something like that been exposed beneath the sky for the entire world to see?This was no minor scandal.Every clan in Konoha guarded its bloodline and secret techniques like the root of its existence. Coveting them was one thing. Stealing them was another. Transplanting them onto one's own body was a violation of the line no clan would ever allow to be crossed.
This was not merely Danzo's disgrace.It was a crisis capable of splitting Konoha itself apart.
In the darkness, Danzo Shimura clenched his fist so tightly his knuckles turned pale.Shock and fury churned in his single visible eye.His secret had been exposed like this-bared to the entire ninja world without mercy.
And worse than that was the future it implied.If Naruto had really killed him in the future, then the boy had to be eliminated long before that day ever came.For Konoha. For stability. For his own necessity.That was the conclusion Danzo arrived at almost instantly.
Across the other great villages, the Kage wore expressions uglier than storm clouds.The Fourth Raikage smashed his desk to pieces with a single blow, lightning bursting wildly in all directions as his roar shook the office."Naruto Uzumaki... Konoha!!!"
He could not accept it.He had not simply been defeated in that future-he had been cut down like an insect, casually and without dignity. The humiliation of that death burned hotter than the loss itself.
Onoki floated in midair, his ancient face dark and rigid.Beheaded-before he had even understood how.For a man who prided himself on experience, cunning, and survival, there could be no greater mockery.
Mei Terumi bit down on her lip so hard it nearly drew blood.Her slender hands clenched unconsciously, as if her body still remembered the phantom pain of that unseen strike punching through her chest.
Rasa's gaze was cold and vicious.He was relieved, at least, to learn he had not died by Gaara's hand.But the unknown killer who had ended him instead had now become the target of all his murderous intent.
The truth shown by the sky was brutal.These Kage, who stood at the summit of the shinobi world in the present, had looked no sturdier before future Naruto than dust blown from the edge of a table.
That gap in power was so vast it left them breathless.So absolute it felt humiliating.So hopeless it bordered on suffocating.
Tsunade stared at the now-quiet sky for a long moment.Shizune, standing beside her, looked at her in worry.
"Lady Tsunade...?"
"We're going back," Tsunade said.
Shizune blinked. "Back? Right now?"
Tsunade stepped forward without looking away for long, then lowered her voice."I need to go back and take a good look at that kid."