"So much has happened while I was away… looks like I've really fallen behind." Tsunade looked genuinely surprised.
"All of these changes happened in just a matter of days. Naturally, the highest authorities of the Land of Fire were the first to receive the information," Orochimaru replied calmly. "You, on the other hand, were off fooling around somewhere, so it's no surprise your intel is late and muddled."
The Land of Water had been surrounded by Crimson Ice—it was doomed.
Why didn't anyone try to deal with the Crimson Ice?
Heh.
No one—none of the shinobi—had ever even mentioned that possibility.
The contamination of the Crimson Ice far exceeded anything anyone could've imagined. It had spread across the entire world, sweeping through the oceans. This thing defied logic and comprehension. No countermeasure made any sense. Humanity could only lie down and accept it—treat it as a natural disaster, something to be ignored, something not to be discussed.
In the end, Tsunade chose not to stay.
Orochimaru believed his lab was secure enough to keep a few people safe from "that one's" chaos. After all, they were technically allies.
But Tsunade thought Uchiha Sasuke was the mastermind behind all of this. And to her, there was no way a Uchiha would ever have goodwill toward someone from the Senju bloodline. Staying here—in this so-called "City of Peace"—she felt not even a shred of safety.
Orochimaru didn't dare speak too plainly. After a few subtle tests, he suspected that "that one" could somehow sense when others talked about him behind his back.
...
Not long after Tsunade left, a young girl knocked and entered Orochimaru's laboratory.
"Sensei."
"Ah, Anko. What brings you here?"
"Nothing, really. I was just bored." Orochimaru had taken Anko away from Konoha during the Chūnin Exams. Now, under strict confinement, she wasn't allowed to go in or out freely. To others, she was already considered dead.
Orochimaru handed her a book titled Anatomy of Living Beings.
"If you're bored, read this. It's quite entertaining."
Anko looked awkward and immediately changed the subject.
"Sensei, why are you always doing things I can't understand?"
"Because dreams and pursuits aren't the same. Of course you wouldn't understand," Orochimaru replied. Most people in the shinobi world couldn't comprehend his obsession with immortality. Naturally, they couldn't understand why he did strange, seemingly unrelated things.
Anko tilted her head, lost in thought. She was someone without clear goals or direction, used to going with the flow. In the past, she had half-seriously hated Orochimaru, which counted as something to cling to. But after he smuggled her back here, she couldn't even bring herself to hate him anymore. She found herself making excuse after excuse for him, and somehow, the two returned to being a typical master and student.
Orochimaru did care for Anko, but more importantly—he saw her as a contingency plan for his resurrection.
Anko didn't understand Orochimaru's motives. Just like Orochimaru couldn't figure out "that one." At first, he thought their cooperation was meant to destroy Konoha, but what followed grew more and more absurd.
Faced with the unknown, Orochimaru kept his usual curiosity and caution. He was terrified of dying—so much so that he tried to hide as many of the Heaven Cursed Seals as he could.
...
The demon's goal had always been simple: to make all living things in this world die in agony—and then devour their souls.
Destruction was far easier than creation. By launching seemingly random attacks from all directions, he could shatter this world piece by piece, and throw off anyone trying to follow his moves.
The small-scale Shinobi World Wars weren't nearly enough to satisfy him. What he wanted was a true global conflict—a war that would drag every living being into madness and bloodshed.
As long as the demon existed, no one would know peace.
...
After leaving Orochimaru's lab, Tsunade secretly contacted Jiraiya. She wanted to go see the so-called "New Konoha."
The sky was gray and murky. It had been a long time since she'd seen a bright blue sky. The dry wind howled restlessly, scratching at the skin like sandpaper.
"Jiraiya-sama! Tsunade-sama!" The Chūnin on guard duty recognized them both and called out in shock and joy. "You two have finally come back!"
Jiraiya and Tsunade smiled and gave him a nod before heading straight toward the center of New Konoha.
In his office, Hiruzen Sarutobi sat smoking with a troubled look on his face. He was worried about Asuma. As Tsunade stepped inside, she brushed shoulders with a mature, elegant woman.
"She looks familiar. Who is that?"
"Oh, she's the Third's second wife. After Biwako-senpai passed away, she became the official one."
Tsunade recalled the memory, but didn't greet the woman. Instead, she knocked on the door and went straight into the office.
...
Meanwhile, somewhere in the mountains behind New Konoha—
"What the heck? Why did I randomly fall asleep again?" Uzumaki Naruto sat up groggily, rubbing his eyes and glancing around in confusion.
The sun had already sunk into the west. The clouds glowed a dusky red. A few birds chirped quietly from the treetops.
Naruto snapped back to awareness. He'd escaped here with his beloved Third Grandpa. It had been a little awkward at first, but he'd quickly adapted. Life here wasn't bad. At the very least, no one called him a demon fox anymore. On the contrary—they treated him with real respect.
As for those villagers who used to insult him?
Naruto had generously forgiven them. Not that it mattered—they were all dead anyway~~
Still, food supplies in New Konoha were scarce. Naruto often went hungry. He had come to the mountains to hunt, hadn't he? How did he just fall asleep out of nowhere?
He had a weird feeling—like he was forgetting something.
"Ugh… this is so weird." Naruto shook his head. Something felt off in the air around him. But he couldn't figure out what.
Just then, a clear girl's voice called out behind him. Naruto spun around.
A girl around his age was standing there, blinking at him.
"Hey, Naruto-oniichan, what are you doing here?"
Naruto scratched his head. "You are…?"
A strange sense of danger rose in his chest. His scalp tingled. He couldn't help but shiver.
The girl blinked her bright eyes.
"Did you hit your head or something? I'm Sarutobi Keiko—Konohamaru's big sister. We were training together just this morning, remember?"
"Oh… yeah, my memory's been a little fuzzy lately." Naruto smiled sheepishly and tried to recall what had happened earlier that day.
As he thought about it, fragmented images did flash through his mind. They had trained together that morning, and they'd gotten along quite well.
But something still felt terribly wrong. The sense of unease in his heart only grew stronger. His chest tightened like it was about to explode. His left eyelid twitched. His instincts screamed at him.
A crisis was coming!
This was insane!
Suddenly, the chakra in Naruto's body surged violently, spilling out uncontrollably. It wrapped tightly around him, cutting off all external interference.
And in that moment—he saw the truth behind the illusion.
Sarutobi Keiko… wasn't human at all!
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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