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Chapter 175 The New Naruto
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The morning was unusually quiet.
Team 7 and Team 8 sat around Tazuna's table, enjoying the simple breakfast Tsunami had laid out. For a moment, there was peace with the soft clinks of chopsticks, the murmur of light conversation, and the smell of breakfast drifting through the air.
That is, until Inari blinked up from his bowl and innocently asked, "Where's big brother Naruto?"
All movement stopped.
Sakura groaned, dragging a hand down her face. "Naruto's up to something. I can feel it in my spine."
It had become a bit of a shared trauma among the genin: if Naruto wasn't in the room, something absurd or terrifying or both was probably in motion. After all, he'd spent the entire mission casually breaking every expectation they had about what was possible.
"Okay," Kiba said, cracking his knuckles. "Who wants to bet what kind of disaster he's gonna cause today? I'm guessing giant snake. Or he's riding one."
"Maybe he found another magic sword," Shino offered flatly.
"Or he overthrew the monarchy," Sakura added, only half-joking.
Kakashi didn't laugh.
He sat silently, his chopsticks untouched, a deep weight pressing behind his eyes. He'd spent most of the night trying to think of anything to do to fix his blunder. Something that might undo the damage. Bridge the distance. Reach the boy before he slipped completely beyond Konoha's grasp.
But in his heart, he knew.
Naruto didn't need Konoha. He didn't need the system, the rules, or the apologies. Being a shinobi was something Naruto did, not something he was. If he walked away… nothing and no one could stop him.
Minato-sensei, I'm sorry. I failed him too.
Before Kakashi could spiral any deeper, a pulse of chakra slammed through the house like a freight train. The walls shook. Cups rattled. The very air changed.
Everyone felt it.
Tazuna and Tsunami went pale. Inari clung to Sasuke's arm.
Sakura and Hinata leapt up, forming a defensive line in front of the civilians. Kurenai and Kakashi both tensed, already on their feet.
"It's Naruto," Hinata said softly, her Byakugan flaring to life.
That was the only warning they got. And then the wall exploded.
Not a crack. Not a crumble.
The entire front of the house detonated inward in a storm of plaster and wood as a golden blur tore through it like a cannonball from the heavens. The table flipped. Rice went airborne. A cup spun midair, then smashed against the far wall.
And there, in the middle of the wreckage, sat Naruto. "Ngh… sorry," he said, rubbing his temple. "Kinda overshot the Body Flicker."
The silence was deafening.
Sasuke calmly reached over and covered Inari's eyes. Tsunami turned away with a hand over her mouth.
Naruto blinked at everyone staring, then looked down.
"Oh."
He was completely, gloriously, unmistakably naked.
"Right. Forgot I wasn't wearing clothes."
"You forgot?" Sakura shrieked, her voice hitting a note only dogs could hear.
Naruto stretched his arms overhead and rolled his shoulders as he equipped the Bandit Set. The rough leathers and loose dark fabric molded perfectly to his frame. It was like the clothes had been sewn to his new body.
"Gotta love auto-fit," Naruto muttered. Thanks, system.
A faint shimmer of light pulsed across his skin as the gear settled into place, syncing to his chakra. He turned and admired the movement of the coat as it swayed with him. Sleek. Clean. The hood even had a little notch for his longer hair now. Stylish and dramatic. He could live with this.
Tsunami, who had been standing very still ever since he crash-landed into her home, finally blinked. Without a word, she grabbed Inari and Tazuna and made a graceful retreat from the ruined front room.
"I think we'll give you shinobi some space," she said sweetly, closing the sliding door behind her or what was left of it, anyway.
Naruto gave a sheepish smile. "Nice lady."
"Unbelievable," Sakura muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You explode into the house naked, and now you're modeling your outfit like it's a catwalk."
"I was born to make statements," Naruto said, striking a mock pose. "Fashion. Fear. Fury. I contain multitudes."
"I liked it better when you just shouted about ramen," Sakura grumbled.
Hinata stood a few steps behind, eyes averted, palms over her face.
"Hinata, you okay?" Naruto asked.
"I'm fine!" she squeaked. "I... I didn't see anything! I wasn't looking!"
Sakura raised a brow. "You sure about that?"
Hinata peeked through her fingers, and that's when Sakura saw it. The faint glow of the Byakugan still flickering behind her hands.
"Oh-ho?" Sakura smirked. "Were you scanning the goods, Hyūga?"
"N-No!" Hinata cried, flustered beyond saving. "It doesn't work that way! I can't just..."
"Right, right," Sakura said. "Just happened to have your X-ray vision... which now has the Sharingan's photographic memory on when Naruto landed. Totally innocent."
Hinata glared sideways, cheeks redder than her jacket. Without a word, she jabbed Sakura's shoulder with pinpoint precision.
"Hey!" Sakura's arm went numb instantly.
"You deserved that," Hinata muttered.
"Joke's on you," Sakura said, flopping her useless arm. "I'm left-handed."
"Joke's on you," Hinata replied, reaching for her other shoulder.
Before she could strike, a heavy silence fell over the room.
Kiba and Akamaru were flat on their backs, limbs splayed dramatically.
"Are they... playing dead?" Naruto asked, blinking.
Shino stood frozen, both hands pressed to his temples, eyes wide behind his glasses. "Why isn't my hive responding?" he murmured. "They're... still. Completely still."
That was enough to make everyone tense.
Sasuke stepped forward, crossing his arms. His gaze flicked from the hole in the wall to Naruto's taller frame, and his eye twitched. "How the hell are you taller than me now?"
Naruto scratched his head. "I dunno. I woke up like this."
"You're leaking chakra like crazy," Hinata said, suddenly serious. "It's... dense. Sharp. Wrong."
Naruto took a breath and focused. With a single push of will, his chakra tightened. The pressure vanished from the room like someone had lifted a weight off their chests.
Kiba sat up abruptly. "What just happened?! Why is there a hole?! Why is Naruto tall?! What year is it?!"
No one could give Kiba an answer. As it turned out, he had not been pretending to play dead. His body had instinctively gone limp, subconsciously reacting to Naruto's overwhelming presence. A primal response. Pure survival.
"You okay, Shino?" Hinata asked, glancing at the still Aburame.
"Yes," Shino said, though his voice was quiet, uncertain. He kept his hands on his temples, clearly needing a moment. The group wisely gave him space.
Sasuke turned his gaze to Naruto. "So what exactly happened to you, dobe?"
Naruto gave a casual shrug. "Dunno."
Everyone in the room exhaled together, the tension settling into one massive sigh.
Hinata cleared her throat gently. "Naruto-kun… I don't know how to say this, but with my Byakugan, I observed something strange. You now have two hearts. One of them… is made of stone."
The room went still.
Naruto didn't reply. His eyes drifted shut as he turned his awareness inward, slipping into the realm of the soul. There, within the mirror of his spirit, he found the source.
The black dragon scale.
It had been grafted onto his chest, not like a wound or scar, but like a seed. Vines of chaos energy curled from it, twisting deep into his soul. They reminded him of the curse of the witch that once marred his arm, but this was different.
He opened his eyes slowly.
"Okay," Naruto said, sitting up straighter. "I think I have an answer now."
He looked around at his teammates. "You guys remember how my Hawkeyes work, right? Change your soul, change your body."
"Yeah," Sasuke replied. "You explained it… last night?"
Naruto raised an eyebrow, reminded that he was the only one who experienced time differently in Lordran.
He cleared his throat. "Anyway, same principle. I must've grafted a dragon scale onto my soul. And I guess that made me taller, heavier, and gave me… a lot more hair."
Blank stares.
"Dragons don't exist," Kiba said flatly.
Naruto shrugged. "Yeah, well… I think they were hunted into extinction a long time ago. Or they went into hiding."
"Naruto," Kurenai said, stepping forward, "dragons are just myths."
She narrowed her eyes and placed a hand on Naruto's forearm. "Let's see what the facts say."
She sent a gentle pulse of chakra into his arm and immediately flinched.
"It's resisting me," she murmured. "His skin… repels foreign chakra. It's like trying to push chakra through a stone wall."
She pressed again, slower, more carefully. Her chakra slid over the surface of his skin, like water trying to soak into polished rock.
She began a full medical inspection, moving with practiced precision. Checking pulse, reflexes, temperature, and bone density.
"His temperature is low. Too low. Sub-reptilian. His muscle density is abnormally high for someone his size. Reflexes are quick but they twitch slightly before they fire. That's not human neurology. That's closer to cold-blooded predator behavior."
She ran her fingers gently across his back and collar. "There are scale patches along his shoulders and spine. Not chakra-based. Real. Organic. Formed under the skin and pushing through slowly."
She used a medical light to inspect his eyes. "Pupil reaction time is hyper-responsive. Vertical slits. Multi-layered iris. He can probably see better in the dark than any of us."
She leaned back slowly and stared at him like she wasn't sure if he was still the same boy who had eaten breakfast with them two days ago.
"Congratulations, Naruto," she said dryly. "You've officially given the middle finger to human biology. If I had to classify you scientifically… you wouldn't be considered fully human anymore."
"Half dragon…?" Naruto prompted.
Kurenai sighed. "If calling it dragon makes you feel better, then sure."
She turned toward the ruined teapot like it might suddenly offer liquor.
No one blamed her.
Sakura cleared her throat. "What's the last thing you remember doing? Maybe it explains how this all happened."
"The last thing I remember," Naruto said, voice low and distant, "is that I accidentally freed some dangerous guy. He went straight for Oscar, and I… I absorbed a dragon scale. I did it to protect him. But after that… everything goes black. My mind just blanks out."
He looked down at his hands, as if expecting to see proof of what he had done written in the lines of his palms. Then, with quiet certainty, he added, "I don't know why, but I feel like I killed Havel."
Silence fell around the room.
No one laughed. No one rolled their eyes or called him crazy. They had all heard too many stories, seen too many impossible things when it came to Naruto. At this point, pretending he was lying felt like an act of ignorance. Like denying the earth was round.
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "How did you even get a dragon scale?"
His tone was calm, but his mind was restless. He had felt Naruto's draconic presence. Even from a distance, it had been crushing. Like standing in the shadow of something ancient and immovable. As much as Sasuke hated to admit it, Naruto was like a mountain that felt like it was growing taller every day.
Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Oh, I killed a hydra. It dropped the scale."
That sentence did not land lightly. Kakashi's lone eye sharpened. Hydra?
His mind turned over an old ANBU file, one from a mission long before he was Team Seven's sensei. A report on Orochimaru. Specifically, one of his many twisted creations. A multi-headed serpent beast, dubbed a hydra by the researchers. Supposedly, it had never reached maturity. It was incomplete.
So then… if Naruto had fought and killed a real hydra, what was it he had actually faced? What did it say about Orochimaru's recreation?
"How did you absorb the scale?" Sakura asked, curiosity laced with worry.
Naruto looked hesitant. "I used the incomplete curse mark."
The reaction was instant.
Kurenai shot to her feet and grabbed his shoulders, her eyes wide with fear. "What did you just say?!"
Naruto blinked. "I said I used a curse mark. Why?"
Kurenai ignored the question. Her fingers moved quickly, tugging at his collar, examining his arms, neck, even the back of his shoulder. She searched for the telltale seal pattern of Orochimaru's Cursed Seal.
"What's going on?" Kiba asked, brow furrowed.
Kakashi stepped forward. His voice was calm, but firm. "The curse mark is a forbidden jutsu. A fuinjutsu developed by Orochimaru. The first version of the seal was designed to implant animal traits into humans. Most who received it didn't survive."
Sakura looked between Naruto and Kurenai. "You don't think that's what happened to Naruto, do you? That the seal let him take in dragon traits?"
Naruto gently pulled away from Kurenai. "No, that's not it. I'm pretty sure the seal didn't actually do anything. Like, literally nothing. I think the scale fused with my soul through my right arm. The cursed one."
He raised his right arm.
Kurenai exhaled a long breath and stepped back, visibly relieved.
"Why were you so worried?"
"Because the curse mark is dangerous. A friend of mine… she was given one against her will. By Orochimaru. Her life changed forever. She still fights to control it, every day." Kurenai spoke quietly, her eyes drifting toward Kakashi, who had remained silent throughout the entire exchange.
Kakashi finally spoke, his voice calm but firm. "Where did you get this curse mark, Naruto?"
In the past, the old him might have jumped to conclusions... assumed Orochimaru had somehow reached out to Naruto. But the man he was now had learned better. He listened first. Judged later.
"Mizuki dropped it. When I killed him."
Gasps rose from the genin.
Naruto went on, explaining how Mizuki had tricked him into stealing the Forbidden Scroll, how he had turned on him, and how Naruto had fought back. And won.
The genin were stunned. The academy assistant they had all seen nearly every day. The man who handed out training schedules and graded sparring forms, had been a traitor.
Kiba clenched his fists. "We trusted him."
Hinata looked away, her expression unreadable. Shino adjusted his glasses in silence.
Sasuke remained indifferent, while Sakura found herself wondering what Mizuki's true purpose had been in their classroom all along.
Kakashi and Kurenai shared a look. A long, cold one.
If Orochimaru had sleeper agents inside Konoha… and if one had been embedded in the academy itself… then how many more were there?
Hinata raised her hand tentatively, her fingers trembling just slightly in the morning light. "Um… I know it's not really the best moment, but… can I say something?"
"Sure, Hinata. At this point, what's one more weird thing?"
She inhaled. "My Byakugan just looked into your second stone heart. Inside it… there's a weapon."
That caught everyone's attention.
Naruto slowly turned to her, his eyes narrowing. "A weapon?"
Hinata nodded, voice quiet but firm. "It's the Astora Straight Sword. Embedded in the heart itself like it's part of you now."
Naruto blinked, then slowly pressed his hand to his chest, just over the place where the second stone heart pulsed with its quiet, otherworldly rhythm. Now that he was paying attention, he could feel it clearly... something deep within him, dormant yet resonant, thrumming like it was waiting to be awakened.
The Drake Sword. Oscar's sword. Forged from loss and legacy. And now… it was part of him. His new heart.
He didn't know how it had fused with him, or when, but the weight of that truth settled heavily on his shoulders. It meant something. Too much, maybe. And he would need time to understand it.
He couldn't tell if the idea was terrifying or beautiful.
Kiba groaned, dragging a hand down his face. "I swear, if one more secret comes out of that guy today, I'm gonna jump into a lake."
Akamaru barked.
Sakura rose to her feet without a word. The tension had knotted her shoulders for too long. She turned away and walked toward the nearby stream with a water canteen, the crunch of her footsteps the only sound for several seconds.
"Sakura, could you bring me a glass too?"
Sakura returned a few seconds later and silently handed him a metal cup filled with cool water.
And that's when it happened.
A deep, cracking groan echoed from above them. Before anyone could react, a thick ceiling beam broke free, falling with deadly speed—straight toward Sakura.
Naruto's body moved before his brain did.
His right hand lifted as if guided by a deeper instinct, and the slit in his palm tore open like a wound blooming with crimson light.
The beam stopped midair.
Sakura stood under it, frozen, staring up at the massive slab of wood hovering inches above her head. Her eyes widened. Her breath caught.
Then the light in Naruto's palm-eye faded, and the beam dropped harmlessly to the floor beside her.
She stepped away, legs shaking. "You… stopped it."
Naruto lowered his hand slowly, expression unreadable. "Yeah."
Kurenai's eyes locked on the glowing slit in his palm. "What kind of ninjutsu was that?"
Hinata activated her Byakugan again. Her brows furrowed. "I can't see what stopped the beam. There's no chakra surrounding it, nothing in the area. It's like… something invisible caught it. Like an unseen hand materialized for a moment."
Sasuke crossed his arms. "What about the eye?"
Hinata focused, her voice growing more cautious. "It's difficult to explain. The eye isn't connected to anything. It's floating inside a cavity in Naruto's palm. No blood vessels, no nerves, not even chakra lines. But I can see thin red energy threads—very faint—linking the eye to his stone heart."
Kurenai nodded slowly. "So whatever this is… it's a result of Naruto's half-dragon transformation."
Kakashi stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "Naruto, try channeling chakra into your heart. See if that activates the eye again."
Naruto inhaled, focused, and let his chakra flow. The slit flared open. The eye blinked.
"…I can see through it," he said, voice soft with wonder. "Like another set of eyes. But not like regular sight. It's… deeper. Like I'm looking at the world from an angle I didn't know existed."
Kakashi studied him carefully. "Can you control it?"
Naruto nodded slowly. "It feels like breathing. Natural. If I want to push, pull, or direct that force—I just know how. Instinctively."
"That sounds like a kekkei genkai," Sasuke murmured.
Sakura stepped closer, eyeing his hand, then meeting his gaze. "Does it hurt?"
Naruto shook his head. "No. It feels like it was always there. I just didn't know how to open it."
A heavy silence settled over them.
Tension lingered in the air, thick with uncertainty.
Kakashi let out a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. "This is going to be one hell of a mission report."
Kurenai shot him a flat look. "You're the lead jonin. That's your job."
Before Kakashi could answer, a quiet snicker escaped from Naruto.
Everyone turned.
"What's so funny now?" Kiba asked.
Naruto had his right hand awkwardly behind him, palm-eye open and faintly glowing.
He grinned. "I can see my own butt."
A pause followed.
Sasuke closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
Kiba snorted.
Sakura stared at Naruto, unblinking. "That's what you're using your mysterious dragon eye for? Rear surveillance?"
Naruto's grin widened. "Hey, tactical awareness is important."
Kakashi sighed, hands in his pockets. "At least he's still Naruto."
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[ Personal Note: First off, thanks a ton to all of you for sticking with this story. Seriously, you guys are awesome. Now, if you're interested in supporting me on P@treon, let me just say that over there, I post these massive 5k-word chapters. But heads up, if you're jumping to P@treon, you'll need to start from Chapter 84, since that's where this chapter lines up with the content there.
To everyone here just reading along, please don't forget to leave a comment! Honestly, your comments make my day, and they let me know you're as invested in this story as I am. So yeah, thanks again, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day!