"...Wait a minute!"
Sasuke suddenly snapped back to his senses.
"Hold it right there!"
Naruto, who had already taken several steps away, turned back.
"Something else?"
Sasuke's gaze darkened as he approached.
"You still haven't explained why you tampered with my eyes."
Naruto grinned.
"You're not really asking why I took your eyes... You're wondering why I gave them back, right?"
Sasuke's expression shifted. That was the question gnawing at him ever since he'd woken up. Despite having a few theories, he still wanted to hear it from Naruto himself.
Naruto tilted his head slightly and shrugged.
"I already told you—I borrowed them to study some jutsu.
As for why I returned them…"
"You were probably wondering if I planned to wait until your eyes evolved further… and then harvest the final product, right?"
Sasuke's Sharingan flared instantly. He instinctively stepped back, chakra flaring into a battle-ready stance.
Despite already knowing Naruto had strange powers, the way he casually read his thoughts aloud rattled him to the core. His first instinct was to fight.
But after a brief moment, something flickered across Sasuke's face. He lowered his chakra, narrowed his eyes, and walked up to Naruto.
"Tch. Pointless."
With that, he deactivated his Sharingan, cast a simple Transformation Jutsu, and left with a cold expression, walking off toward home.
Naruto chuckled inwardly.
"Uchiha to the core… even his 'tactical retreat' has main character energy."
"Heh. Sasuke's turning out to be more and more interesting."
"Tch. I thought he'd actually attack. What a letdown."
"Okay, can someone explain what's up with that Uchiha kid just now?"
Hearing the voices of the tailed beasts in his mind, Naruto entered the seal space. He noticed that Isobu was now about the same size as Matatabi.
After a brief chat with Isobu, Naruto took him to the Mirror World and assigned him the same "World Guardian" access role.
But what Naruto didn't expect was that a data puppet of Yagura—the Fourth Mizukage—had appeared in the Mirror World.
"Was it copied when I fist-bumped Isobu earlier?"
That might explain it. After all, Isobu was partially manifesting through Yagura at the time.
But Naruto still couldn't understand why no data puppets of actual tailed beasts had ever appeared—nor had a clone of himself.
He was deep in thought when Kurama and Matatabi arrived as well.
Seeing Isobu poking at the interface screen, Kurama narrowed his eyes.
"Naruto, you should head back. Let us help Isobu get familiar with the Mirror World."
Naruto nodded and exited, habitually spreading his sensory field across the village—and quickly noticed something off.
First, there was a large gathering near the Hokage's office, and one particular chakra signature there gave him serious déjà vu.
And at his house, although his Shadow Clone hadn't arrived yet, the number of ANBU watching his place had increased—from six to seven.
He recognized the new arrival. After the explosion at the Hokage Rock, this man had been in charge of rebuilding half the village.
"So the Third is already assigning Wood Style users near me…?"
Naruto had a lot on his plate today, but his thoughts kept circling back to Sasuke's eyes.
His hypothesis had been simple: As the reincarnation of Asura, if he implanted Sasuke's eyes, there should have been some evolution—some reaction.
But aside from a Mirror World alert about a mysterious "foreign will," nothing happened.
That was why he returned the eyes so quickly.
"Could it be… I'm not actually the reincarnation of Asura's chakra?"
If that was the case, what about Sasuke?
"Or… have I just not awakened Asura's chakra yet?"
If so, that meant Indra's chakra inside Sasuke was also dormant.
That led Naruto to recall something from the original timeline—the conversation between himself, Sasuke, and Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, the Sage of Six Paths.
Back then, Hagoromo said both of them had already begun sensing the presence of Asura and Indra's chakra before their near-death experiences.
He remembered that after absorbing Kurama's chakra on Turtle Island, he had instinctively used the Shinra Banshō sealing formula—a jutsu Kurama recognized as Sage of Six Paths' technique.
Naruto had been sixteen at the time. He had already mastered Rasengan variants and Sage Mode.
But what mattered was this: he had taken Kurama's power as his own, and that seemed to be the moment he awakened Asura's chakra.
"So maybe that's when it happens… full control over a Tailed Beast."
But then, what about Hashirama Senju?
There was no mention in canon of Hashirama ever realizing he was Asura's reincarnation… yet he had Wood Style and Sage Mode naturally.
And Madara too—he had never shown any awareness of Indra either.
His train of thought was broken as he sensed his Shadow Clone nearing home.
Naruto re-entered the Mirror World. The three Tailed Beasts had left, so he opened the data for Hiruzen Sarutobi.
"Hmm? The Third already knew about the Mist Village incident?"
And they had even dispatched Yamato—a Wood Style user—to monitor him, probably worried about a potential Tailed Beast rampage.
Surprisingly, it had all been Danzo's suggestion. No wonder the chakra signature earlier felt familiar.
After the last Iwagakure conflict, Danzo had regained the Third's trust, and now he'd scored again by relaying intel on the Mist Village civil war.
Apparently, Danzo had employed a rather cruel method of intelligence gathering.
He used "dead agents"—spies whose deaths would trigger a sealing mark on their handlers to vanish, signaling their demise.
Each spy-handler pair was linked via a shared summoning contract with a messenger crow.
When the chaos broke out in Mist Village, one such spy saw Yagura's Tailed Beast transformation and immediate escape.
He summoned the crow, recorded the data, and then committed suicide.
The handler in Konoha realized the seal had vanished, summoned the crow, and retrieved the intel.
Danzo, upon receiving the info, went straight to the Hokage and even called in the other two advisers to plan how to exploit the situation.
Naruto snorted.
"Danzo playing the loyal dog for Sarutobi again. Reminds me of Orochimaru..."
Curious, he opened the data feed for Kabuto Yakushi—and sure enough, he discovered something juicy.
Danzo and Orochimaru were working together again—and Danzo had even sent multiple Sharingan eyes for Orochimaru to experiment on.
Naruto smirked.
"I've been waiting for your Konoha Crush plan, Orochimaru.
If you follow the script, I'll have plenty to gain."
After processing this, Naruto exited the Mirror World.
His clone had returned home.
Just as he was about to head to the Uzumaki Storage Hall, he sensed activity at the Hokage's office—people were starting to leave.
Hayate Gekkō was moving directly toward his house.
"So the Third's paying me a home visit."
His house clone confirmed it instantly and dispelled itself.
Naruto immediately summoned the three Tailed Beasts from the Mirror World and explained the situation.
Then, he created a Shadow Clone to reapply a Five Elements Seal over his body.
Whoosh!
He activated Flying Thunder God and reappeared in his bedroom upstairs.
Sensing Hayate closing in, he casually grabbed the atlas of ninja nations the Shadow Clone had bought from the bookstore.
He was only a few pages in when he sensed Hayate arrive on his windowsill. Moments later, there was a knock on the door downstairs.
The Third Hokage had arrived—with Yamato.
Naruto braced himself but kept a calm expression.
He headed downstairs and opened the door.
"Lord Hokage!"
Hiruzen smiled kindly, noticing the book in Naruto's hand.
"Studying hard, I see."
Naruto scratched his head awkwardly and welcomed them in.
But his gaze never left Yamato—the Wood Style user created by Orochimaru's experiments.
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