The border checkpoint of the Fire Dominion loomed ahead—tall walls of blackened stone, sealed with crimson chakra barriers that pulsed with life like veins in a giant beast. A massive gate stood open, guarded by men in matching black armor with Konoha's old symbol rebranded: the spiral leaf now twisted, coiled into a perfect circle, no longer a symbol of will—but of control.
I kept my head down and waited in the ragged line of travelers. Farmers, merchants, ex-shinobi with their chakra sealed. Some looked hollowed by fear. Others wore peaceful expressions, even smiles. That was the strange part.
Under Naruto Uzumaki's rule, the world had order. Trade flowed. Banditry was dead. Wars had ceased. Streets were clean. Villages connected by sky rails and glowing seal-beacons.
But freedom? That died with Konoha.
"Next."
The guard's voice snapped me back. I stepped forward, presenting the forged ID scroll I'd painstakingly crafted in the ruins of the Land of Claw. A merchant from the border. Low chakra level. No threat. A lie polished into reality.
The guard unsealed it, scanned it with a red-lens monocle linked to the chakra database.
I didn't blink.
Click. A pause.
"…Approved."
The gates of New Konoha groaned as they opened further. My first real step into the empire of the man who murdered my family.
---
New Konoha wasn't the village I remembered from my childhood drawings.
It was a city now—towering spires, glowing street seals, monorails looping overhead like silver veins. People bustled about in neatly marked districts. Every wall had a sigil etched into it. Surveillance eyes disguised as glowing insects flitted between rooftops. Each movement watched. Each whisper caught.
Naruto's idea of peace was a system.
A system where disobedience didn't exist.
And yet… people lived. Smiling shopkeepers. Children in uniforms chanting loyalty verses. Ninja patrolling like knights of order. They didn't fear him—they revered him. Worshipped him.
That's what made it harder.
I wandered into the western ward, where refugees and outsiders congregated. Here, the cracks were clearer—ration lines, missing family signs, whisper networks about disappearances. And it was here I found Rikuro.
He was older than I expected—half-blind, with mechanical fingertips and a gait twisted by lightning burns. Once a chakra engineer in the old Land of Iron, now reduced to selling scraps and secrets in alleyways.
"You the one asking about old ROOT tech?" he rasped, puffing on bitter-smelling herbs.
I nodded.
He chuckled. "You've got a death wish. I like that."
He handed me a scroll, half-charred and locked with a four-layered seal. I cracked it open hours later in a hidden inn, and my breath caught.
A map.
Buried far below the city—an old site, predating the fall. Possibly untouched. Possibly forgotten.
The kind of place Naruto's surveillance might have missed.
Opportunity.
I repacked the scroll and burned the rest. Tomorrow, I'd start laying roots. A fake trade license. A working permit. A life.
Because if I was going to bring down the monster, I had to kneel before him first.
And smile.
---