"Konoha must take full responsibility for the future world-ending crisis!"
"If Konoha insists on protecting him, then we will treat that as a provocation against the entire shinobi world and reserve the right to take whatever measures are necessary!"
Every letter carried the same tone - threats, suspicion, and barely concealed hostility. In the space of a single day, Naruto Uzumaki's name had changed from "the demon fox of Konoha" into something far worse in the eyes of the world.
A calamity. A disaster waiting to happen. A fuse attached to the throat of the entire shinobi world.
Even daimyo who normally paid little attention to the affairs of hidden villages had begun to panic. The vision in the heavens had not merely shown battle. It had shown the possibility of total ruin, and that kind of fear touched the deepest interests of rulers everywhere.
In the Hokage's office, Hiruzen Sarutobi rubbed his temples with exhausted fingers. The wrinkles in his face seemed deeper than they had been only yesterday, as though a whole year had passed in a single afternoon.
No one understood more clearly than he did what it would mean to hand Naruto over.
That would not simply be yielding to outside pressure. It would be deliberately giving up one of Konoha's most important strategic assets and, perhaps more importantly, betraying a child who belonged to the village.
Until a proper method for dealing with the Nine-Tails was found, Naruto could not be allowed to come to harm. That was Hiruzen's conclusion, firm and absolute.
Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane had been discussing matters in low voices for a long time. They proposed one measure after another - stricter surveillance, tighter control of Naruto's movements, diplomatic reassurances to the other villages, temporary restrictions, formal guarantees.
But even as they spoke, the futility of it all was obvious.
The terror displayed beneath the sky had gone far beyond the level where ordinary supervision meant anything. What regulation could possibly reassure the world after they had seen a boy who could butcher the Five Kage, force the entire shinobi world into war, and stand at the center of an apocalyptic future?
As for Shimura Danzo, the man who usually emerged first whenever it was time to propose "necessary sacrifices," he had vanished without a trace.
Hiruzen knew him too well to believe that meant inaction. Danzo was somewhere in the dark already, measuring the crisis, weighing the opportunities, and deciding who should be cut away for the sake of what he called Konoha's future.
Internal turmoil. External pressure. Distrust from the world beyond the walls and uncertainty inside them. The weight of it all wrapped around Hiruzen like chains.
For a long time he said nothing.
Then, slowly, he picked up the most aggressive ultimatum of them all - the one from Kumogakure - and slammed it flat onto his desk.
The crack of paper against wood echoed through the office.
"Pass down the order," he said, his voice low and iron-hard. "Summon every jonin in the village. Emergency meeting."
An ANBU operative appeared at once, knelt, accepted the command, and vanished.
Silence returned.
Hiruzen rose from behind his desk and crossed to the window. Outside, Konoha was bathed in the fading gold of sunset. The village looked tranquil from up here - smoke curling from chimneys, merchants packing up their wares, shinobi moving across rooftops, voices drifting upward from the streets.
It looked alive. Safe. Ordinary.
This peace had been bought with blood, secrets, sacrifice, and choices too ugly for the public to ever fully know. Hiruzen had borne those choices for decades. Right or wrong, all of them had been made in the name of protecting what lay before him now.
His gaze slowly sharpened.
"No matter what..." he murmured.
His voice was soft, but the will inside it did not bend in the slightest.
"The peace of Konoha was purchased with the blood and lives of countless people. I will not allow anyone - or anything - to destroy it."
He paused, and Naruto's face rose in his mind. Blond hair. Blue eyes. A loud mouth, a lonely smile, a child who had grown up hated without ever fully understanding why.
"Naruto... is a shinobi of Konoha. He is Minato's son. Kushina's son. As long as I remain Hokage, I will never hand him over."
At that moment, Hiruzen Sarutobi made his choice.
He chose trust over fear.
He believed what he had seen in Naruto's eyes all these years. Unless the boy had suffered something so terrible it twisted the very core of him, Hiruzen could not believe that Naruto would one day become the monster shown in the heavens.
And even if the truth of Naruto's birth came to light... even if he learned everything... Hiruzen still wanted to believe the village would not be abandoned by him.
That was what bonds were supposed to mean.
***
The jonin meeting room in Konoha was already full by the time Hiruzen arrived.
The air inside was thick and heavy, but there was another feeling tangled up in it too - something strange, almost unreal. Nearly every jonin in the village had been called in, and though many were speaking in low voices, those conversations were fragmented, distracted.
Because almost every gaze in the room kept drifting, whether openly or in secret, toward the same place.
Might Guy sat there in his green jumpsuit, back straight, knees together, hands resting stiffly on his thighs.
Konoha's jonin all knew him.
The village's self-proclaimed "Blue Beast." A taijutsu specialist with an absurd bowl cut, relentless energy, and a level of enthusiasm that often bordered on madness. To many, Guy had always been impressive in his own way, but not someone people instinctively placed at the center of Konoha's military confidence.
Not in a world ruled by bloodline limits, ninjutsu, forbidden techniques, and monstrous chakra.
Pure taijutsu, no matter how polished, had always been treated by many as something second-tier. Flashy? Perhaps. Admirable? Sometimes. But never truly the peak.
The image beneath the heavens had shattered that quiet prejudice to pieces.
The blood-red steam. The desperate beauty of a man burning his own life away. The final strike that had forced even the arrogant destroyer of the world to acknowledge him. For one impossible instant, Might Guy had pushed a being like Naruto Uzumaki to the brink and even killed him once.
Killed a god.
And now that same man was sitting in this room, painfully aware that everyone was staring at him.
Even Guy, thick-skinned as he usually was, seemed unable to bear it.
His posture was so rigid it bordered on comical. The usual blazing confidence in his grin was gone, replaced by visible awkwardness. He looked as though he wanted to turn his head, but did not know where it would be safe to look.
Just then, a lazy voice drifted over from beside him.
"Nicely done, Guy."
Kakashi Hatake had appeared at some point and taken the seat next to him. His tone was as listless as ever, but there was no teasing in it. His visible eye had curved into a gentle crescent, and his words carried a sincerity impossible to mistake.
"You lived up to your nindo."
Something in Guy visibly loosened.
"Hahaha!"
His laugh burst out all at once, too loud and too sudden, and just like that the embarrassing stiffness vanished. He scratched the back of his head so hard it almost looked painful, his familiar vitality flooding back into him.
"Actually, actually!" he said, half proud and half embarrassed. "Right now I can only open the Seventh Gate, the Gate of Shock! As for the Eighth Gate, the Gate of Death, I still don't have the ability to truly control that power!"
Even so, as he spoke, his fists tightened.
Fire ignited in his eyes - not vanity, but resolve.
"But I will work hard!" he declared. "Within five years, I will master the full power of the Eighth Gate! I will burn the passion of youth to its absolute limit!"
Ordinarily, a speech like that might have drawn helpless looks or quiet chuckles. Not today.
Not a single person laughed.
Instead, the jonin around him answered with voices full of sincere conviction.
"You can do it, Guy."
"We're counting on you."
"The Blue Beast of Konoha, huh? From now on, protecting the village may really be your job."
There was no mockery in any of it. Men and women who had fought through wars, missions, and bloodshed looked at Guy with genuine respect.
What they admired was not merely the power shown beneath the sky.
It was the decision behind it.
To burn everything without hesitation for the sake of comrades. To step into death with open eyes because something precious stood behind you. To turn youth - that thing Guy was always shouting about so absurdly - into something pure, fierce, and worthy.
That kind of nindo could not be laughed at.
Even Hiashi Hyuga, a man not known for wasting praise, had cast Guy a grave look of acknowledgment. Asuma Sarutobi leaned back in his seat with his cigarette unlit between his fingers, studying Guy with a new and complicated respect. Others - veterans, middle generation shinobi, even those who had never been close to him - all gave him some form of quiet approval.
Guy's throat bobbed.
For perhaps the first time in that room, the recognition truly reached him.
His eyes turned red.
"T-thank you!" he shouted, and his voice cracked with emotion. "Thank you, everyone! This... this is youth!"
The atmosphere, tense though it still was, softened for a brief moment.
Then an ANBU voice sounded from the entrance.
"The Hokage has arrived!"
The doors swung open.
Hiruzen Sarutobi entered in full ceremonial robes, his Hokage hat casting a shadow across his stern face. Homura and Koharu followed close behind him. The room fell silent so quickly it felt as though the air itself had stopped.
No one remained seated in spirit, even if they did not rise immediately. Every eye turned to the front.
The easy encouragement, the heat surrounding Guy, the scattered murmurs from moments before - all of it vanished at once.
Because everyone understood why they had been called here.
This was no ordinary meeting.
This was about Naruto Uzumaki. About the sky. About the future war. About the pressure closing in from all sides. About whether Konoha would stand firm or bend beneath the fear of the world.
Hiruzen moved to the head of the room and slowly swept his gaze over everyone present.
He saw suspicion. Confusion. Tension. Resolve. Fear. Loyalty.
He also saw something else - the thing he had hoped for.
They were waiting to hear not what the world demanded, but what Konoha would choose.
And in that silence, as the evening light dimmed beyond the windows and the first shadows of night crept across the floor, the emergency jonin meeting officially began.