The day of the Chunin Exam finals dawned bright and clear.
The stadium was packed with spectators from across the Elemental Nations—nobles, merchants, ninja from allied villages, and civilians eager to see the next generation of warriors prove their worth.
The atmosphere was electric.
This was partly due to anticipation.
It was mostly due to Sparky, who was sitting in the stands and literally crackling with protective energy.
"If anyone harms him," she muttered, "I will unmake them."
"That's... very sweet?" Ayame said nervously from beside her.
"It is not sweet. It is a promise."
The Roku Appreciation Society had secured an entire section of seating. Seventeen women (and growing) sat together, united in their shared affection for the oblivious man currently warming up in the arena below.
Kurenai had brought binoculars.
Anko had brought snacks.
Hinata had brought a first-aid kit, "just in case."
Temari—newest member, having officially joined after the training ground incident—had brought her fan, ready to provide supportive wind jutsu if needed.
"He looks nervous," Sakura observed. She was technically supposed to be with the other competitors, but had snuck into the stands "for moral support."
"He's always nervous before exams," Ino replied. "Remember when he threw up before the Academy graduation? All forty-seven times?"
"He's come so far since then."
"He's befriended multiple gods since then."
"That too."
Down in the arena, Roku was indeed nervous.
Not about fighting—fighting was fine. Things happened when he fought, and usually those things worked out.
No, he was nervous because a LOT of people were watching.
"There are so many people," he said to Naruto, who was stretching beside him. "What if I mess up?"
"Dude, you literally caught lightning last week. With your HANDS."
"But that was an accident!"
"Everything you do is an accident! And it always works out!"
"I guess..."
Naruto clapped him on the shoulder. "Relax! Just do your best! That's what I'm gonna do!"
"Thanks, Naruto. You're a good friend."
"Hell yeah I am! Now let's kick some ass!"
The Hokage stood to address the crowd.
"Welcome, honored guests, to the Chunin Exam finals! Today, our young ninja will demonstrate their skills in one-on-one combat. The matches will continue until one fighter is unable to continue, surrenders, or is declared the winner by our proctor."
He paused, his eyes finding Roku in the lineup below.
"Please... enjoy the show."
There was a weight to those words that only those who knew Roku understood.
The first match was Naruto versus Neji.
It was a spectacular fight—Naruto's determination against Neji's genius, climaxing in Naruto's victory through sheer willpower and a frankly absurd amount of shadow clones.
The crowd went wild.
Roku cheered loudest of all.
"THAT'S MY FRIEND! THAT'S MY FRIEND RIGHT THERE!"
The second match was Sasuke versus Gaara.
This one was more complicated.
Sasuke had trained extensively, developing new techniques and pushing his Sharingan to its limits.
Gaara, meanwhile, was... different.
Ever since Roku had "fixed" him, the sand ninja had been eerily calm. His sand still protected him, but it moved with purpose rather than bloodlust.
And Shukaku was quiet.
More than quiet—COOPERATIVE.
"Don't embarrass us," the One-Tail muttered in Gaara's mind. "The nice human is watching."
Since when do you care what anyone thinks?
"Since he made me feel FEELINGS. I don't like feelings. But I like disappointing him even less."
The match was intense but controlled. Sasuke pushed hard, demonstrating his new speed and his Chidori technique.
Gaara defended, his sand forming increasingly complex patterns.
And then, just as Sasuke was about to land a decisive blow—
Gaara forfeited.
"I yield," he said simply.
The crowd gasped.
"WHAT?!" Sasuke demanded. "We're not done!"
"I have nothing to prove. Fighting for the sake of fighting is meaningless." Gaara looked up at the stands, finding Roku. "I was taught that recently."
Sasuke followed his gaze.
He saw Roku waving cheerfully at Gaara.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"I am not. Thank you for the match, Uchiha."
Gaara walked away, leaving a sputtering Sasuke and a very confused crowd.
The third match was Shikamaru versus Temari.
Shikamaru forfeited almost immediately.
"Too troublesome," he said. "She's too motivated. I saw her looking at the Roku guy. Women with that look in their eyes are dangerous."
"SHIKAMARU!" Ino screamed from the stands.
"See? Dangerous."
The fourth match was Shino versus Kankuro.
Kankuro forfeited.
"My puppets aren't working right," he explained. "Ever since the training ground, they've been... twitchy. I think they're scared."
"Puppets can't be scared," the proctor said.
"Tell THEM that."
And then it was time.
The match everyone had been waiting for.
The match that would either prove the rumors true or reveal them as exaggeration.
"Fifth match: Roku Tanaka versus Neji Hyuuga!"
Wait.
That wasn't right.
Neji had already fought Naruto. He was eliminated.
The proctor checked his clipboard.
"I'm sorry, that should read: Roku Tanaka versus... versus..."
He squinted at the paper.
The paper squinted back.
"The paper says Roku versus 'Whoever Is Brave Enough,'" the proctor announced, confused. "That's not a name. That's a challenge."
No one stepped forward.
"Is there anyone who wishes to fight Roku Tanaka?"
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence.
"Anyone at all?"
More silence.
"I'll fight him!" a voice called out.
Everyone turned.
A ninja from Kumogakure—one of Darui's teammates—stepped forward. He was tall, muscular, and crackling with lightning chakra.
"I am Toroi of the Cloud! I have heard the stories about this 'Roku Tanaka,' and I do not believe them! He is just a man, and I will prove it!"
"Are you sure?" the proctor asked.
"I am certain! The Cloud does not fear fairy tales!"
"Alright then. Fifth match: Roku Tanaka versus Toroi of the Cloud!"
Roku walked to the center of the arena.
Toroi walked to face him.
"I will show everyone that you are a fraud," Toroi declared. "Your 'power' is merely tricks and exaggeration."
"I'm really not that strong," Roku agreed. "I just try my best!"
"Exactly! You are nothing special!"
"Probably not!"
"And I will defeat you easily!"
"You might! I'm not very good at fighting!"
Toroi's eye twitched.
He had expected arrogance. Intimidation. Some sign of the legendary power he was supposedly facing.
Instead, he got... agreement.
"Stop agreeing with me! It's unnerving!"
"Sorry! I just think you're probably right!"
"BEGIN!" the proctor shouted.
Toroi attacked immediately.
Lightning Style: Electromagnetic Murder.
A wave of electricity surged toward Roku, enough to paralyze a dozen ninja.
Roku, not knowing what else to do, held up his hands.
"I don't want to fight!"
The lightning hit his palms—
—and stopped.
Just... stopped.
Frozen in midair, crackling harmlessly between Roku's outstretched fingers.
"That tickles," Roku said.
Toroi's jaw dropped.
"You... you CAUGHT my jutsu?"
"Did I? I was just trying to block it!"
"That's not how blocking works!"
"Oh. Sorry!"
Roku closed his hands, and the lightning disappeared.
Not dissipated. Not grounded.
DISAPPEARED.
As if it had never existed.
"What ARE you?" Toroi whispered.
"I'm Roku Tanaka! I failed the Academy forty-seven times!"
In the stands, the Roku Appreciation Society watched with varying expressions.
"He caught lightning again," Ayame said.
"He does that," Sparky confirmed.
"Is it weird that I find that attractive?"
"No. Power is attractive. And Roku has power beyond comprehension."
"It's the way he apologizes while doing it," Kurenai added. "That's what gets me."
"He's so HUMBLE," Anko agreed. "It's infuriating and adorable."
"Focus, ladies," Temari said. "The match isn't over."
Toroi was panicking.
He had trained for years. He was one of Kumo's elite. His lightning techniques were feared across the continent.
And this man had just EATEN his jutsu.
"I won't lose to a fraud!" Toroi roared. "Lightning Style: Thunderbolt!"
A massive bolt of electricity shot from his hands.
Roku stepped aside.
The bolt curved to follow him.
Roku stepped aside again.
The bolt curved again.
This continued for thirty seconds—Roku casually dodging, the bolt desperately trying to hit him, the crowd watching in stunned silence.
"This is getting silly," Roku said. "Mr. Lightning, could you please stop?"
The bolt stopped.
It hovered in midair, uncertain.
"Thank you! That's very nice of you!"
The bolt seemed to consider this.
Then it turned around, flew back to Toroi, and struck him.
His own jutsu.
Attacking its creator.
Because Roku had asked nicely.
"WHAT?!" Toroi screamed as his body convulsed with electricity.
"Oh no! Are you okay?"
"MY OWN LIGHTNING BETRAYED ME!"
"It seemed like it wanted to be free! Maybe you should have asked it nicely?"
Toroi collapsed, unconscious.
"Winner: Roku Tanaka!"
The crowd was silent.
Then, slowly, hesitantly, they began to applaud.
Not enthusiastic applause—more the confused applause of people who weren't sure what they had just witnessed but felt like they should acknowledge it.
Roku bowed politely.
"Thank you for the match!" he called to the unconscious Toroi. "You were very strong!"
From the Kage box, the assembled village leaders watched with varying expressions.
The Third Hokage puffed on his pipe, his expression resigned.
The Fourth Kazekage (secretly Orochimaru in disguise) was sweating.
He had planned an invasion. A careful, meticulous invasion that had been years in the making.
And now he was watching a man politely defeat an elite jounin by asking lightning to stop attacking him.
Maybe I should reconsider, Orochimaru thought.
No. This is my best chance to destroy Konoha. The invasion proceeds.
But that man...
He caught Amaterasu. He befriended the Ten-Tails. He creates techniques that shouldn't exist.
He is a threat. The biggest threat.
Which means he must be eliminated first.
Orochimaru adjusted his disguise and signaled his hidden forces.
The invasion would proceed as planned.
But the primary target had changed.
The sixth match never happened.
Because that's when the explosions started.
"KONOHA IS UNDER ATTACK!"
The cry went up from multiple locations simultaneously. Smoke rose from the village walls. Sound ninja poured through breached defenses. Sand ninja—those who hadn't been swayed by Gaara's change of heart—attacked their former allies.
And in the Kage box, Orochimaru revealed himself.
"Hello, sensei," he hissed, shedding his disguise. "It's been too long."
"Orochimaru!" Hiruzen rose, his ANBU guards moving to intercept.
"Don't bother. My forces have already begun the destruction of your precious village. By the time this day is done, Konoha will be nothing but ashes."
"You underestimate us."
"No. I've prepared for everything." Orochimaru's eyes gleamed. "Well. Almost everything."
He glanced toward the arena, where Roku was looking up at the explosions with concern.
"That one will be dealt with first. I have... special measures prepared."
Roku didn't understand what was happening.
One moment, he was celebrating his match.
The next, people were screaming and running and there were explosions everywhere.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!" Naruto shouted. "SOUND AND SAND NINJA ARE EVERYWHERE!"
"Attack? But why?"
"DOES IT MATTER?! WE NEED TO FIGHT!"
Roku looked around.
He saw villagers fleeing in terror.
He saw ninja battling in the streets.
He saw buildings burning, children crying, people dying.
And something inside him... shifted.
Sparky felt it first.
A change in the air. A pressure. A weight that hadn't been there before.
"Something's different," she murmured.
"What do you mean?" Ayame asked.
"Roku. He's... changing. I can feel it."
"Changing how?"
"He's been holding back. Always. Every moment of every day, he's been restraining himself—not consciously, but instinctively. Keeping his power contained."
"And now?"
Sparky's eyes widened.
"Now he's stopping."
Roku stood in the center of the arena as chaos erupted around him.
He watched a Sound ninja cut down an elderly civilian who had been too slow to flee.
He watched a Sand ninja set fire to a building with families still inside.
He watched his village—his HOME—being destroyed by people who didn't care about the lives they were ending.
And for the first time in his life, Roku Tanaka got angry.
Not protective anger—he had felt that before, with Orochimaru in the forest.
This was different.
This was cold.
This was focused.
This was the anger of someone who had finally, finally stopped pretending to be less than he was.
"That's enough," Roku said quietly.
His voice should not have carried.
Everyone heard it anyway.
The fighting stopped.
Not voluntarily—STOPPED. Every ninja in the village found themselves frozen in place, unable to move, unable to attack, unable to do anything but watch as Roku Tanaka walked calmly through the streets.
"I said that's enough," he repeated.
His eyes were different now. Still brown, still warm, but there was something behind them. Something vast. Something ancient.
Something that had been sleeping for a very, very long time.
"He's awakening," Sparky breathed. "The power he's always had—he's finally accessing it consciously."
"Is that good?" Kurenai asked.
"For Konoha? Yes. For the invaders?"
She smiled grimly.
"Very, very bad."
Orochimaru watched from the Kage box as his carefully planned invasion ground to a halt.
His forces—hundreds of elite ninja—were frozen in place.
All of them.
Every single one.
"What... what is happening?" he demanded.
"I believe," Hiruzen said, his voice carrying a note of wonder, "that Roku is upset."
"ONE MAN cannot—"
"He is not one man. He never was. We just didn't understand what he actually was."
"And what is he?"
Hiruzen smiled.
It was not a kind smile.
"I have no idea. But I suspect you're about to find out."
Roku walked through the village.
Where he passed, fires extinguished themselves.
Where he passed, wounded ninja—both Konoha and enemy—found their injuries healing.
Where he passed, debris moved aside, buildings stabilized, chaos became order.
He wasn't using jutsu.
He wasn't even trying to use chakra.
Reality was simply... cooperating with him.
He found the first group of Sound ninja in the marketplace.
They had been about to execute a group of merchants.
They were now frozen, their weapons raised, their faces masks of fear.
"You came to my village," Roku said, his voice calm. "You attacked my friends. You killed people who had done nothing to you."
"We—we were following orders—" one ninja stammered.
"I understand. Orders can be hard to disobey. But you still chose to follow them. You still chose to hurt people."
"Please—we'll stop—we'll surrender—"
"I know you will. But first, I want you to understand something."
Roku looked at them—really looked at them, with eyes that saw more than flesh and blood.
"I want you to feel what they felt."
The Sound ninja screamed.
Not from pain—not exactly.
They screamed because suddenly, they felt EVERYTHING.
Every death they had caused. Every wound they had inflicted. Every moment of fear and grief they had created.
They felt it all, simultaneously, in the span of a single heartbeat.
And then it was over.
They were on their knees, sobbing, their weapons forgotten.
"I'm sorry," one whispered. "I'm so sorry."
"I know," Roku said. "Now you understand."
He walked on.
Throughout the village, the same scene repeated.
Invading ninja, frozen and confronted by a calm young man who made them FEEL the weight of their actions.
No violence. No combat. No death.
Just... understanding.
Enforced empathy.
The cruelest and kindest punishment imaginable.
Orochimaru watched his invasion crumble.
Not through defeat in battle—his forces were simply GIVING UP.
Ninja who had killed dozens without remorse were now curled in fetal positions, weeping for their victims.
Elite assassins were begging for forgiveness from people they had been trying to murder moments ago.
His entire army, broken by a single man walking through the streets.
"This is impossible," he whispered.
"Nothing is impossible for him," Hiruzen replied. "I think that's the point."
"He's not even FIGHTING! He's just—just WALKING!"
"And yet, your invasion is over."
Orochimaru's eyes narrowed.
"Not entirely."
He bit his thumb, drawing blood.
"Summoning Jutsu: Reanimation!"
Three coffins rose from the ground.
Three lids fell away.
And three figures stepped forth—the First Hokage, the Second Hokage, and the Fourth Hokage, resurrected through forbidden jutsu.
"You MONSTER!" Hiruzen snarled. "Bringing back the dead—"
"Is a small price for victory. These three will destroy your precious Roku. Not even he can defeat the combined power of three Hokages."
The resurrected Kages turned toward the arena, their eyes blank, their wills overwritten by Orochimaru's control.
"Kill him," Orochimaru ordered. "Kill Roku Tanaka."
The three Hokages moved.
Hashirama's Wood Style created a forest of deadly branches.
Tobirama's Water Style summoned a tsunami.
Minato's speed made him a yellow blur of death.
They converged on Roku from three directions.
And Roku...
Roku looked up at them.
"Oh," he said. "It's you."
The attacks stopped.
Not because Roku blocked them.
Because the Hokages CHOSE to stop.
"We... we remember," Hashirama said, his blank eyes clearing. "The exam. You summoned us. You... you talked to us."
"I apologized for interrupting your rest," Roku agreed. "Is something wrong?"
"We're being controlled," Tobirama observed. "Our bodies are puppets. But our MINDS..."
"Are still there," Minato finished. "Your presence. It's... it's breaking the control."
"I don't like controlling people," Roku said simply. "It seems mean."
Orochimaru stared in horror as his ultimate weapons turned to face him.
"This is impossible. The Reanimation Jutsu is absolute. The summoned dead CANNOT resist—"
"We are not resisting," Hashirama said. "We are being freed. By someone whose will is stronger than your jutsu."
"That's not HOW IT WORKS!"
"Apparently," Tobirama said dryly, "you were wrong."
Orochimaru made a decision.
If his controlled forces wouldn't work, he would do this himself.
He had trained for decades. He had mastered countless forbidden techniques. He was one of the Legendary Sannin.
He was Orochimaru.
And he would not be defeated by some failed Academy student.
"FINE!" he roared, leaping from the Kage box. "I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF!"
He flew toward Roku, his sword drawn, his chakra blazing with killing intent.
And Roku...
Roku sighed.
"I really wish you wouldn't."
The summoning happened without hand signs.
Without conscious thought.
Roku simply wished for protection, and the universe PROVIDED.
The Ten-Tails materialized.
Not gradually—INSTANTLY.
One moment, empty space.
The next, a hundred-meter entity of incomprehensible power, its single eye fixed on Orochimaru with something approaching annoyance.
"You are attacking my friend," Jūbi observed.
Orochimaru stopped in midair.
He looked up.
And up.
And UP.
The Ten-Tails—the progenitor of all chakra, the ultimate calamity, the being that the Sage of Six Paths had sacrificed everything to seal—was looking down at him like he was a particularly irritating insect.
"I do not like that."
Orochimaru's brain, working at full speed, calculated his odds of survival.
The number was very, very small.
"Perhaps," he said carefully, "we could discuss this?"
"No."
The Ten-Tails opened its mouth.
Chakra gathered—pure, unfiltered, apocalyptic amounts of chakra. Black and purple and white, swirling together into something that defied description.
A Bijūdama.
A Tailed Beast Bomb.
The ultimate technique of the ultimate being.
"WAIT—" Orochimaru started.
The world went white.
Later, witnesses would struggle to describe what happened.
Some said they saw a beam of light that stretched to the heavens.
Some said they heard a sound like the universe cracking.
Some said they felt a presence—something vast and ancient and utterly beyond human comprehension—reach out and touch reality.
What actually happened was simpler.
Orochimaru was hit by a Bijūdama.
A full-power Bijūdama from the Ten-Tails.
There was no body.
There was no ash.
There was no EVIDENCE that Orochimaru had ever existed.
He was simply... gone.
Erased at the atomic level.
Removed from existence with such thoroughness that even his backup bodies—hidden across the continent—simultaneously dissolved into nothing.
Every experiment. Every hideout. Every trace of Orochimaru's dark legacy.
Gone.
Completely, utterly, absolutely GONE.
The Ten-Tails looked at the crater where Orochimaru had been.
"Hmm," it said. "Perhaps that was excessive."
"Was he a bad person?" Roku asked.
"Based on his chakra signature? Very bad. Ancient evil concentrated into human form."
"Then it's probably okay."
"I appreciate your understanding."
From the stands, the Roku Appreciation Society watched in stunned silence.
"He... he just..." Ayame couldn't finish the sentence.
"Erased Orochimaru from existence," Sparky confirmed. "By accident, I suspect."
"By ACCIDENT?!"
"He summoned the Ten-Tails without meaning to. The Ten-Tails attacked without being asked. Roku simply... allowed it."
"That's terrifying."
"Yes. And also very attractive."
"SPARKY!"
"What? Power is appealing. I am not ashamed of my preferences."
But Roku wasn't done.
Because even as Orochimaru was being atomized, more enemies were appearing.
Sound ninja reinforcements.
Mercenaries hired to ensure the invasion's success.
And at their head, a figure that made even the Ten-Tails pause.
Kabuto Yakushi.
But not the Kabuto who had surrendered after his psychological breakdown.
This was something else.
Something that had absorbed too much of Orochimaru's power.
Something that was more snake than man.
"HE'S DEAD!" Kabuto screamed, his body warping and shifting. "MY MASTER IS DEAD! AND YOU—YOU—"
"Weren't you supposed to be in prison?" Roku asked.
"I ESCAPED! THE MOMENT I FELT HIS POWER FADE, I ESCAPED! AND NOW I WILL AVENGE HIM!"
Kabuto's form expanded, transformed, became something monstrous—a hybrid of human and serpent, radiating dark chakra.
"I ABSORBED HIS CURSE MARKS! HIS RESEARCH! HIS POWER! I AM THE NEW OROCHIMARU NOW!"
"That seems unhealthy."
"I WILL DESTROY YOU!"
He lunged.
Roku didn't mean to create a new technique.
He never meant to do anything.
But Kabuto was attacking, and the Ten-Tails was recovering from its previous attack, and Sparky was too far away to help.
So Roku just... reacted.
He held out his hand.
And something appeared.
In a distant future, in a timeline that would now never exist, Naruto Uzumaki spent years mastering a technique.
He combined the Rasengan with nature transformation.
He added wind chakra, creating the Rasenshuriken.
Then, after years of additional training, he learned to add other elements.
Fire. Water. Earth. Lightning.
And finally, in the ultimate expression of his power, he created the Lava Release Rasenshuriken—a spinning disc of molten rock and wind that could destroy anything it touched.
It was his ultimate technique.
His crowning achievement.
His legacy.
And Roku just MADE one.
Without training.
Without practice.
Without even knowing what a Rasenshuriken WAS.
The sphere of molten rock and spiraling wind appeared in Roku's palm, growing and stabilizing in a fraction of a second.
It was beautiful.
It was terrifying.
It was radiating enough heat to melt steel at fifty meters.
"What—WHAT IS THAT?!" Kabuto screamed.
"I'm not sure," Roku admitted. "It just sort of happened."
He threw it.
The Lava Release Rasenshuriken hit Kabuto.
And expanded.
And EXPANDED.
A dome of destruction—molten rock and cutting wind and something that might have been reality itself coming apart at the seams—engulfed the snake hybrid entirely.
When it faded, there was a crater.
A perfectly circular crater, its edges glassy from extreme heat.
At the center, nothing.
Not even ash.
"Two for two," the Ten-Tails observed. "You are efficient."
"I hope I didn't hurt anyone else."
"Only the target. Your control was... surprisingly precise."
"That's good!"
In a dimension outside of time, a future version of Naruto Uzumaki sat up.
"What the HELL was that?!"
"What's wrong?" Hinata asked from beside him.
"Someone just—I felt it—my technique—"
"Your technique?"
"The Lava Release Rasenshuriken! Someone just USED it! Without permission! Without training! Without—"
He paused.
Reached out with his senses.
And felt the echo of Roku Tanaka's chakra.
"Oh no."
"Who is it?"
"It's... some guy? I don't recognize him, but his energy is... it's like looking at the sun. How does someone just MAKE a technique that took me twenty years to develop?!"
"Maybe he's special?"
"SPECIAL doesn't cover it! This guy is—he's—"
Naruto put his head in his hands.
"I've been invalidated. Decades of training, invalidated by some random guy who probably doesn't even know what he did."
"There, there."
"I'm going to find him. I'm going to find him and ask him how he did it."
"That sounds healthy."
"It's not healthy. It's PETTY. But I deserve pettiness right now."
Back in the present, the invasion was over.
Completely, utterly over.
Sound and Sand forces—those who hadn't been rendered catatonic by Roku's empathy attack—were surrendering en masse.
The resurrected Hokages, free from Orochimaru's control, were helping with cleanup and repair.
And Roku was sitting in the arena, surrounded by his friends, looking vaguely confused.
"What happened?" he asked.
"You stopped an invasion," Kakashi said.
"I did?"
"You erased Orochimaru from existence."
"Was he the snake guy?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Good. He was mean."
"You also created what appeared to be a technique that hasn't been invented yet and used it to destroy a man who had absorbed forbidden powers."
"That sounds excessive."
"It was. Very excessive."
"Sorry."
Kakashi sighed.
"Don't apologize. You saved the village. Hundreds, maybe thousands of lives. Whatever you did... it worked."
"It did?"
"It did."
Roku smiled—that warm, genuine smile that made everyone around him feel slightly better about the universe.
"Then today was a good day!"
"You literally committed acts that violated the laws of physics and possibly existence itself."
"But nobody I like got hurt!"
"That's... that's not..."
Kakashi gave up.
"Sure. A good day."
In the aftermath of the invasion, the Elemental Nations would need time to process what had happened.
The death of Orochimaru—permanent, complete, impossible to reverse.
The defeat of an invasion force through nothing but enforced empathy.
The demonstration of power that defied every known limit.
Roku Tanaka had revealed himself to the world.
Not intentionally. Not dramatically.
He had simply protected his home, his friends, his village.
And in doing so, he had changed everything.
In the Pure Land, Madara Uchiha watched the conclusion of the invasion.
He watched Orochimaru be atomized.
He watched Kabuto be erased.
He watched Roku Tanaka sit in a crater of his own making, cheerfully asking if anyone wanted ramen.
"Well," Madara said finally. "I'm glad I decided not to come back."
"Regrets?" Hashirama asked—the version of him that was still dead, not the temporarily resurrected one.
"None whatsoever. Infinite Tsukuyomi would have been pointless anyway. That man would have just... unmade it. By accident. While apologizing."
"He does seem the type."
"I spent my whole life trying to control the world. And here's someone who can reshape reality with a thought and just wants to be friends with everyone."
Madara sat down—or the spiritual equivalent.
"What was the point? All my schemes, all my plans, all my sacrifices? He makes it all look so EASY."
"Maybe that's the lesson."
"What lesson?"
"That power isn't the answer. That control isn't the goal. That maybe, just maybe, the universe works better when someone genuinely kind is at the center of it."
Madara was quiet for a long time.
"I hate that you might be right."
"I usually am."
"Shut up, Hashirama."
END CHAPTER 6
Next Chapter: "The Aftermath, The World Reacts, and I Think I'm Being Worshipped Now?"
Preview:
"Roku, there's a cult forming in your honor."
"A cult? But I don't want to be worshipped!"
"Too late. They've already built a temple."
"A TEMPLE?!"
"In Wave Country. It's quite nice, actually. Very tasteful architecture."
Meanwhile:
"So every major village is sending delegations to meet Roku?"
"To 'assess the situation.' Yes."
"And all of those delegations include young, attractive kunoichi?"
"...Yes."
"That's not a coincidence, is it?"
"The Raikage specifically requested 'our most charming representatives.' Make of that what you will."
"THE HAREM GROWS."
"THE HAREM GROWS."