The sky above Konohagakure burned with colors that had no place in nature—sickly oranges and blacks that spoke of destruction rather than sunset, smoke that rose from a hundred different fires creating a pall that blocked out the sun and turned afternoon into premature twilight. The air tasted of ash and blood and the acrid smell of overused chakra that left residue like ozone after lightning strikes, coating the back of the throat and making every breath feel contaminated.
The village that had stood for decades as a symbol of strength and prosperity was dying.
Buildings that had housed generations of families were now broken shells, their walls cracked or collapsed entirely, their contents spilled across streets like the internal organs of a gutted beast. Furniture lay smashed in the roads. Personal possessions—children's toys, family photographs, cooking pots—were scattered among the rubble as if the village itself had vomited up everything it had ever contained. The Academy where children had learned to become shinobi was a crater, nothing remaining of its classrooms and training grounds except rubble and the ghosts of lessons that would never be taught again. The desks where students had practiced calligraphy were splinters. The training posts where they'd learned kunai throwing were vapor.
The marketplace that had bustled with merchants and civilians going about daily life was empty, abandoned, the stalls crushed or burned, goods scattered and forgotten. Fruit rotted in the streets. Fabric fluttered from broken stands like funeral shrouds. The money that had changed hands in peaceful commerce was now worthless paper being carried away by wind that smelled of death.
And the Hokage Monument—that eternal symbol of leadership and protection that watched over the village from its elevated position—had been desecrated in ways that hurt to witness. The carved faces of the First through Fourth Hokages had been slashed horizontally, cut through as if by a blade large enough to reshape mountains. The upper halves of their faces were simply gone, removed with such precision that it looked like they'd been created as half-faces to begin with, their eyes and foreheads erased from existence while their mouths remained frozen in stone expressions that now seemed to scream in permanent agony.
Through this devastation, three figures moved with the speed and power of shinobi who'd transcended normal human limitations through years of training and combat experience.
Naruto Uzumaki— now looking like an adult, his face carried darkness in ways the boy who'd left Konoha with Jiraiya never had—moved across the ruined landscape with fluid grace that suggested complete mastery of advanced movement techniques. He wore Akatsuki's distinctive black cloak with red clouds, the high collar framing a face that was familiar yet horrifyingly changed. His eyes—those blue eyes that had always carried determination and hope despite the Nine-Tails sealed within him—were now ringed with black markings that looked like they'd been tattooed or burned into his skin, patterns that suggested corruption or transformation or both. His hair was longer, wilder, and when he moved, black chakra trailed from his body like smoke, like shadow given physical form, creating afterimages that made tracking his position nearly impossible.
The headband he wore still bore Konoha's symbol, but it was slashed through the middle—the universal sign of a missing-nin, of someone who'd betrayed their village and could never return.
Pursuing him across the devastated village were Asuma Sarutobi and Kakashi Hatake—both older than when Naruto had left, both bearing scars and experience that spoke of years of combat since then, both fighting with the desperate intensity of people defending their home against someone they'd once cared about, someone they'd watched grow up, someone who should have been on their side rather than leading this assault.
"Naruto, stop this!" Asuma's voice carried across the ruins, ragged from exertion and smoke inhalation. His chakra blades were active, glowing with wind nature energy that made them capable of cutting through nearly anything. Blood stained his jonin vest from wounds already sustained. "This isn't you! Whatever Akatsuki did to you, whatever they showed you or promised you—it's a lie! Come back to us! Your grandfather wouldn't want this! Jiraiya wouldn't want this!"
But the figure in the Akatsuki cloak didn't respond with words. Instead, his hands moved through seals with speed that suggested years of practice beyond what should have been possible for someone who'd only been gone a few years—Rat, Ox, Tiger, Dog, Boar—and suddenly the air was filled with bodies.
"Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
They erupted into existence by the dozens, by the hundreds, filling the street and rooftops and every available space with figures wearing that same corruption, that same darkness. Each clone was enveloped in the black chakra that trailed from the original, making them look like shadows given form rather than normal clones. And on each forehead, a small black dot formed—a marking that pulsed with malevolent energy that made Asuma's instincts scream warnings about whatever that seal represented.
The clones attacked in perfect coordination, their movements synchronized in ways that suggested shared consciousness or extensive training or both. Some engaged Asuma directly, their taijutsu refined and brutal, no longer the slightly sloppy Academy-graduate style but something that spoke of years of combat experience under masters who'd honed killing techniques to perfection. Remaining clones spread out, creating tactical formations that cut off escape routes and forced the defending shinobi into increasingly disadvantageous positions.
Kakashi's response was immediate and devastating. His left hand moved to his headband, pulling it up to reveal the eye beneath—but not the normal Sharingan. This was the Mangekyō Sharingan, its pattern like a windmill or three-pointed shuriken, spinning with power that literally distorted the space around it.
"Kamui!"
Reality twisted with a sound like tearing fabric magnified a thousand times. One of the approaching clones—mid-leap, kunai drawn, clearly intending to strike Kakashi from above—simply ceased to exist. Not destroyed by an attack, not dispersed back into chakra like normal shadow clones, but erased as the space it occupied was torn away and sent to a different dimension entirely. The technique left a spiral distortion in the air that took several seconds to fade, reality slowly healing the wound Kakashi had inflicted upon it.
But when Naruto was targeted by it .
"Shadow Substitution Technique."
He disappeared in a puff of smoke just as Kakashi's Sharingan focused on his position, the spatial distortion that would have claimed him finding only empty air. In his place appeared one of the clones from further back in the formation, sacrificed to Kamui while the original relocated to safety t—a level of tactical coordination that required split-second timing and spatial awareness that most jonin never developed.
It wasn't a simple clone trick—this was far beyond the standard replacement jutsu. Naruto had fused the principles of Shadow Clone Jutsu with instantaneous chakra transference, allowing him to switch positions with any of his clones at will, faster than the Sharingan could fully track.
Kakashi's eye widened in alarm. He's evolved it… he's using the clones as anchors—like living teleportation points.
"He's learned to counter your Kamui," Asuma observed grimly, his chakra blades moving in defensive arcs that dispersed three clones simultaneously, their bodies bursting into chakra smoke. "Every time you try to send him away, he just swaps with a clone and comes back from a different angle."
"I'm aware," Kakashi replied, his Sharingan tracking multiple targets simultaneously despite the strain such observation put on his chakra reserves. Blood was already beginning to drip from the corner of his eye—the price of using Mangekyō techniques repeatedly. "But if I don't intercept his larger techniques, the destruction gets worse. Watch—"
Naruto's hands were moving again, this time through a sequence Kakashi recognized with dread because he'd seen this technique's development, had watched Jiraiya teaching the fundamentals years ago, had witnessed what it could do to human bodies when it connected. The technique being formed was advanced beyond what any shinobi have mastered, requiring chakra control so precise that even the slightest error would cause it to detonate prematurely.
"Wind Release: Rasenshuriken!"
The technique manifested in Naruto's hand—a Rasengan expanded and refined into something far more deadly, spinning wind chakra formed into a shuriken shape that screamed with barely-contained power. The sound it made was like a thousand birds shrieking in unison mixed with the roar of a hurricane compressed into a sphere, a noise that made teeth ache and ears ring even from a distance. The technique literally tore at the air around it, creating visible distortions in reality as wind chakra rotated at speeds that exceeded what normal materials could withstand. When thrown, it would detonate with enough force to level city blocks, to kill everyone within its radius through cellular destruction that even the best medical ninja couldn't fully heal—microscopic wind blades that would tear apart victims from the inside at a level too small for conventional healing to address.
Kakashi's Mangekyō Sharingan spun faster, chakra flooding the technique as he focused on the approaching Rasenshuriken with every bit of concentration he could muster. "Kamui!"
Space warped more dramatically this time, the distortion visible as a spiral that seemed to suck light itself into its center. The Rasenshuriken, mid-flight and accelerating toward Asuma's position with killing intent, simply vanished—pulled into the dimensional void where it would detonate harmlessly away from reality, its destructive potential wasted in a place where nothing existed to be destroyed.
But the technique cost Kakashi visibly. More blood began trailing from his left eye, running down his cheek like red tears. His breathing became labored, his stance less steady. The strain of repeated Mangekyō usage was accumulating into damage that would take days to recover from even with medical attention.
"You're going to blind yourself at this rate," Asuma said, positioning himself to cover Kakashi's momentary weakness as clones pressed their advantage. "How many more times can you use that before—"
"As many times as necessary," Kakashi interrupted, his hands already moving through different seals despite his exhaustion. "Lightning Release: Purple Electricity!"
Lightning chakra erupted from his hand in a controlled stream, purple rather than the normal blue-white, shaped with precision that came from decades of developing this technique as a replacement for the Chidori he could no longer safely use without the Sharingan active constantly. The lightning caught a dozen clones, dispersing them back into chakra before they could close distance, their forms dissolving with sounds like paper being torn.
But Naruto simply created more. And more. And more. His chakra reserves seemed inexhaustible, the black corruption that surrounded him apparently amplifying his natural capacity—already enormous due to the Nine-Tails—to levels that should have been impossible even for a jinchūriki. Where a normal shinobi would have exhausted themselves maintaining even a dozen shadow clones for extended periods, he was maintaining hundreds while simultaneously performing A-rank techniques that each cost enough chakra to deplete most jonin completely.
The battle continued across the ruined village, the combatants moving from the destroyed Academy grounds to the collapsed marketplace to what remained of the residential district. Each location bore fresh scars from their conflict—craters from failed Rasenshuriken that Kakashi hadn't intercepted in time, scorch marks from fire techniques Asuma had used trying to create barriers between them and the endless clones, the dispersed forms of shadow clones creating chakra smoke that hung in the air like fog and made visibility increasingly difficult.
"Fire Release: Ash Pile Burning!" Asuma exhaled a cloud of gunpowder-infused ash that surrounded multiple clones in a gray haze, then ignited it with a spark of chakra from his lit cigarette. The explosion was massive, clearing an entire street of enemies in a fireball that reached three stories high, but more clones simply materialized from smoke to replace them before the flames had even finished dissipating.
Naruto's voice—when it finally spoke after long minutes of silent combat—carried none of the warmth or enthusiasm that had characterized the boy who'd left Konoha years ago. It was cold, whatever had happened during his time away had carved out everything that had made him Naruto and left only this. "You can't win this. You know that, right? Every technique you use depletes your reserves. Every clone you destroy is instantly replaced at no real cost to me. You're fighting a battle of attrition against someone with effectively infinite chakra. This ends when you collapse from exhaustion or when I finally land a hit you can't counter. Those are your only options."
"Then we'll fight until we collapse," Asuma replied through gritted teeth, his chakra blades shifting to a defensive stance as exhaustion made his movements incrementally slower. "Because the alternative is letting you destroy what's left of this village. And I won't do that. My father died protecting this place and the people in it. I'll do the same if necessary. That's what it means to be a shinobi of Konohagakure."
Naruto's response wasn't words. His eyes—those corrupted blue eyes ringed with black—filled with tears that tracked down his cheeks, cutting lines through the dirt and blood on his face. The tears fell but his expression didn't change, didn't soften, remained that same cold mask even as his body betrayed emotion his face refused to acknowledge.
And his attacks intensified.
The Rasenshuriken came faster now, multiple techniques manifesting simultaneously from different clones, forcing Kakashi to prioritize which ones to intercept with Kamui and which ones to try dodging or blocking through conventional means. Wind blades invisible to normal sight tore through the air, each one capable of severing limbs if it connected. Shadow clones attacked with suicidal disregard for their own survival, throwing themselves at Asuma and Kakashi with taijutsu that sacrificed defense entirely for overwhelming offensive pressure.
Asuma's chakra blades moved in desperate arcs, dispersing clone after clone, but his movements were slowing as exhaustion mounted. His reserves, never as deep as Kakashi's due to lack of chakra-intensive techniques in his normal arsenal, were approaching depletion. Each swing of his blades cost energy he was running out of, each defensive maneuver drew from reserves that would soon be empty.
Kakashi's Sharingan was bleeding freely now, the eye itself bloodshot and damaged from overuse of Mangekyō techniques his body hadn't been designed to sustain. His Lightning Release techniques were becoming weaker, less controlled, as his chakra reserves dipped into dangerous territory where continuing to fight risked permanent damage or death from complete depletion.
The battle raged for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes—time losing meaning in the chaos of high-level shinobi combat where a single second could contain a dozen exchanges. The destroyed village bore witness to their struggle, silent stone and broken wood watching as people who'd once been allies tried desperately to kill or disable each other.
Finally, Asuma stumbled. His leg gave out, exhaustion and accumulated injuries overcoming even jonin-level conditioning. He went to one knee, his chakra blades flickering and then dispersing entirely as his reserves hit critical levels.
Three shadow clones were on him instantly, kunai driving toward vital points. Asuma managed to deflect two but the third connected, burying its blade in his shoulder deep enough to grate against bone. He gasped with pain, his vision graying at the edges as shock tried to pull him under.
Kakashi, seeing his companion fall, made a desperate lunge to intervene—and that moment of distraction was what Naruto had been waiting for. A Rasengan—not the devastating Rasenshuriken but the original technique, smaller and more controlled—slammed into Kakashi's side with enough force to crack ribs and send him tumbling across broken pavement.
Both defenders lay where they'd fallen, conscious but unable to continue, their bodies pushed past sustainable limits. The clones surrounded them but didn't deliver finishing blows, simply maintained a perimeter that prevented any chance of escape or recovery.
Naruto approached slowly, the tears still falling down his face even as his expression remained empty . His hands moved through seals, and black chakra—that corruption that had surrounded him throughout the battle—extended from his body like living shadow.
The chakra wrapped around Asuma and Kakashi like a blanket, like chains, binding them completely, suppressing their remaining chakra and rendering them utterly helpless. They were bundled in that black energy, cocooned and captured, prizes taken from a battle they'd never had any real chance of winning.
Naruto stood over them, his tears mixing with the ash on his face, creating muddy tracks that looked like war paint. His voice when he spoke was barely a whisper, almost lost in the sound of fires still burning across the ruined village.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
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