Naruto's gaze turned solemn—no longer sorrowful, but resolute.
"…And now, finally—the Uchiha."
He looked at each of the legends before him, his voice steady.
"They weren't eradicated like the Senju… or the Uzumaki. You know why?"
He tapped his chest once.
"Because I was here. I made sure they lived. I saved them… with my own hands."
The words were sharp, but the pain beneath them was visible, lingering like a scar that never healed.
Then he turned his head—straight at Tobirama.
"And you… Second Hokage." The title came like a blade. "Your hatred for the Uchiha? It didn't die with you. You passed it down. To your students. To their students. It grew. Like a curse."
Tobirama flinched, but Naruto continued without mercy.
"And the Uchiha? They couldn't take it. Generation after generation treated like ticking bombs. Watched. Feared. Caged. So yes—they pushed back. They protested. They spoke up. And when no one listened…"
His voice darkened.
"…they considered a coup."
A tense silence gripped the room like a noose.
"But even then," Naruto said, "even in the middle of all that tension—two Uchiha teenagers tried to stop the spiral. Two of them."
He held up two fingers.
"One was eliminated before he could even act. Quietly. Silently. Erased."
He dropped one finger.
"The other was manipulated. Lied to. Made into a weapon. Then forced to do something no shinobi—no human—should ever have to live with."
Naruto's voice cracked now, barely holding in the emotion.
"Do you know what it feels like? To raise your sword… against your own blood? To slaughter your mother… your father… your friends… your clan?"
The room was deathly still.
Naruto's voice fell to a whisper, heavy with sorrow.
"He did it. All of it. With his own hands. Thinking it would protect peace. Thinking it was the only way."
He looked around the room. Accusing. Aching.
Naruto's voice softened—but that didn't make it any less damning.
"It's good that I saved them," he said, his eyes distant. "But he… he doesn't know it yet."
There was a pause. The weight of a ghost hung in the silence.
"He still lives in guilt. In grief. Thinking he did the unforgivable."
Naruto turned toward Tobirama, voice rising again—now laced with fury and sorrow in equal measure.
"Your hatred made a boy… a child… raise a blade against his own clan. Against his parents. His little cousins. Friends. Neighbors. He butchered them all, because he thought it would bring peace."
His gaze sharpened.
"What answer do you have for him, Second?"
Tobirama didn't speak.
Couldn't.
His eyes fell to the ground, unable to meet Naruto's piercing stare. The weight of his own doctrine—the cold calculations, the prejudice he once justified as pragmatism—now strangled his breath.
He remembered the blood.
His brother's body.
The flames of war he had tried to contain with control… only to pass that fire to his students.
Naruto didn't stop. He took a single step forward, his voice like a storm.
"You hated the Uchiha because they took people you loved. That's fair… right?"
He glanced at Madara.
"But you killed his brother. So tell me, would it have been right if he let that hatred grow? If he turned that pain into a reason to wipe out the Senju?"
Madara remained silent, but the pain in his eyes said enough.
Naruto's words came crashing down like thunder.
"Would that have made it right?"
Tobirama trembled slightly. His silence was its own answer.
Naruto stood tall, unblinking.
"Hatred doesn't justify more hatred. Pain doesn't excuse cruelty. But you—" he pointed sharply at Tobirama, "—and him—" he turned to Hiruzen's crumpled form, "—you both carried your pain and passed it down like a curse. Like a sickness."
The room was dead still.
"To be honest, you're not much better than him."
The words cut deep.
"You built the structure that allowed all this to happen. He… just followed your blueprint. Your hatred became his silence. Your bias became his manipulation. And both of you let children carry burdens you couldn't bear yourselves."
He pointed at them both—one standing, one bleeding.
"You, and him. Two sides of the same failure."
Tobirama flinched like he'd been struck.
Naruto's voice trembled—not from fear, but from the weight of what he was saying.
"And the boy who carried the cost for all of you… It was Itachi."
Naruto's fists slowly unclenched.
"You want to honor peace? Start by taking responsibility. Not with excuses. Not with silence. But with truth."
Silence.
It wasn't just quiet—it was crushing. Heavy. Sacred. Like the weight of centuries had finally settled in that one room.
No one could look Naruto in the eyes.
Not Tobirama.Not Hashirama.
Not Mito or Minato.
Not even Madara or Orochimaru—men who once believed they stood above consequences. Even they now felt the sting of truth, the ache of guilt blooming in their chests.
Naruto stood at the center of it all—unshaken.
"The reason I brought you all here…" he began, his voice echoing through the chamber like a promise carved in stone, "was to show you the consequences of your choices. The pain your decisions left behind. The weight that fell on the shoulders of children."
He looked around—at the faces of the dead, the broken, the once-revered.
"But more than that… I wanted to show you the beginning of something new."
He straightened his back, his eyes burning with resolve.
"I'm going to build a world with my own hands. A shinobi age where no child ever has to raise a blade against someone they love. No more war. No more grief. No more hatred passed down like inheritance."
His words struck the room like a storm.
But then—
A chuckle broke the silence. Deep. Familiar.
Madara Uchiha finally stepped forward, eyes gleaming with a mixture of amusement and memory.
"Bold words… boy."
He looked at Naruto—not with contempt, but with a strange, haunted respect.
"You remind me of myself."
Then, his voice turned cold.
"But that dream of yours? It won't last. The world moves in circles. Hatred is born from love. Love is born from hatred. Try as you might, you'll end up where we all did—trapped in the cycle. Power, pain, peace, and war. It all repeats."
Naruto didn't flinch. His eyes narrowed—but they didn't harden.
"True," he said softly. "Love creates attachment. Attachment leads to pain. And pain—real pain—twists into hatred."
He raised a hand, clenching it into a fist.
"And when hatred meets war, it becomes a storm that destroys everything in its path."
He let the silence linger before continuing, his voice rising.
"But that's exactly why I have to break the cycle. Or go beyond it."
A pulse of chakra surged from him—gentle, yet overwhelming.
"Because I understand now. Power alone isn't the enemy. It's how you use it. With power, you can oppress—or you can protect. With power, you can control—or you can guide. Without power, you can't change anything. But without love, power is just destruction in disguise."
He looked Madara straight in the eyes.
"You knew that once… but you gave up."
Madara's expression faltered—just for a heartbeat.
Naruto stepped forward.
"I'm not going to follow in your footsteps. I'll carry your mistakes, your hopes, your grief—and I'll build something better with them."
Madara stared for a long moment.
Then, he threw his head back and laughed—loud and wild, like thunder rolling across a battlefield.
"Confident brat!" he said between chuckles. "Then show me!"
He smirked.
"Show me what kind of future you'll create… Naruto Uzumaki."
Naruto smirked, confidence radiating like sunlight breaking through a storm.
"Today," he said, his voice ringing like a bell across generations, "marks the birth of a new age of shinobi."
Not a boast.Not a wish.A declaration.
Madara chuckled, deep in his chest—the sound of a man who had seen the world burn and built it anyway.
"You remind me too much of myself," he muttered. "The same fire. The same foolish dream…"
He turned his gaze skyward, eyes distant.
"But maybe you'll go farther than I ever could."
Then he looked sideways at his old friend, his rival, his brother in all but name.
"What do you say, Hashirama?" Madara asked softly, as though they were children again. "Do you want to see what kind of future this boy's going to create?"
Hashirama didn't answer at first. He simply looked at Naruto—the fire in his eyes, the scars he carried, the love that fueled him.
And then… he smiled.
That warm, tearful, genuine smile.
"As long as someone like him exists," Hashirama said, "I think the future's in good hands."
And for the first time in a long time—maybe since the Warring States era—something like hope stirred in the air.
A new age had begun.
And its name… was Naruto Uzumaki.