The rain had lessened to a persistent, cold drizzle by the time the imposing gates of Konoha loomed through the mist. They stood tall, proud symbols of resilience, recently scarred but defiantly repaired after Pain's assault. To Naruto, they were tombstones. Monuments to a future that would crumble again, a future he had tasted in its bitterest ashes. The vibrant greens of the surrounding forest, usually a welcome sight, seemed muted, greyed by the drizzle and the filter of his Rinnegan. Every leaf, every rivulet of water running down the Hokage faces carved into the mountainside, was preternaturally clear, yet drained of life and color. The world through these eyes was a hyper-realistic etching of decay waiting to happen.
He stood just beyond the treeline, shrouded in the mist and the deepening twilight, a phantom observing the gates. Exhaustion was a lead weight in his bones, the Rinnegan's drain a constant, icy ache behind his eyes that pulsed with every heartbeat. The borrowed chakra from Kurama's final sacrifice was utterly spent, leaving him running on fumes and sheer, hate-fueled willpower. He could feel the frayed edges of his own life force, the toll the eyes and the relentless journey had exacted. He needed rest, real rest, not the snatched moments of near-unconsciousness he'd managed. But rest meant vulnerability. And Konoha, despite its familiar silhouette, was enemy territory now. A place full of ghosts and expectations he could no longer fulfill.
His enhanced senses picked up the chakra signatures long before the figures emerged. Two. Familiar. One, a calm, controlled storm – Kakashi Hatake. The other, a tightly coiled spring of focused energy – Yamato. Sentries. Guardians. Or perhaps, hunters waiting for a changed beast to return.
Naruto didn't move. He let the mist cling to him, the rain soak his ragged clothes. He watched as the two figures materialized from the guard post beside the massive gates. Kakashi, leaning against the frame with his usual deceptive nonchalance, one eye crinkled in a semblance of a smile, the other hidden behind his hitai-ate. Yamato stood beside him, posture straighter, his gaze scanning the treeline with professional intensity. Their chakra radiated relief, concern… and a sharp, immediate spike of shock and apprehension as their eyes locked onto him.
He saw it all with the Rinnegan's brutal clarity: the way Kakashi's visible eye widened fractionally, the casual lean tightening into readiness. The way Yamato's hand drifted almost imperceptibly towards the kunai pouch at his thigh. The subtle shift in their stance, from welcoming committee to wary perimeter defense.
"Naruto!" Kakashi's voice cut through the drizzle, carrying its usual lazy cadence, but laced with an undercurrent of tension he couldn't fully mask. He pushed off the gate frame, taking a few steps forward. "Cutting it a bit close, aren't you? The debriefing started hours ago." He tried for lightness, but his visible eye never left Naruto's face, probing, assessing the changes the mist couldn't hide.
Naruto remained silent. He stepped forward, emerging fully from the treeline. The mist swirled around his legs. The rain plastered his unruly blonde hair flat, revealing the gauntness of his face, the deep shadows under his eyes that weren't just from exhaustion. He met Kakashi's gaze directly.
The effect was instantaneous. Kakashi froze mid-step. Yamato sucked in a sharp breath, his hand now firmly gripping a kunai hilt. Kakashi's visible eye narrowed, all pretense of casualness gone, replaced by stark, disbelieving horror. He stared, not at Naruto's face, but at his *eyes*.
The swirling violet rings, pulsing faintly with their own unnatural light in the gloom, were impossible to miss. The mark of Nagato. The mark of the enemy. The mark of power that had leveled Konoha mere days ago.
"Your… eyes…" Kakashi breathed, the words barely audible over the drizzle. The horror in his voice was visceral, a teacher seeing his student desecrated. "Naruto… what… what happened out there?"
Yamato was less restrained. "Rinnegan!" he hissed, the word a curse. His grip tightened on the kunai, his body coiling, ready for action. The Wood Release user's gaze was locked onto the eyes, radiating suspicion and alarm. "Hatake-san! That's—!"
"I know what it is, Tenzo," Kakashi interrupted, his voice low, tight with controlled urgency. His gaze never wavered from Naruto. "Naruto. Talk to me. What did Nagato do to you?" There was a desperate plea beneath the command, a flicker of the mentor hoping against hope for an explanation that didn't shatter everything.
Naruto stopped a dozen paces away. The rain dripped from his chin, splashed onto the muddy ground. He felt their shock, their fear, their confusion like physical waves crashing against him. He saw the calculation in Kakashi's eye, the warrior assessing a new, unpredictable threat. He saw Yamato's readiness to subdue, to contain. He saw the ghosts of their concern, twisted into weapons pointed at his heart.
*'What did Nagato do to you?'* The question echoed, meaningless. Nagato was dust. He had taken. He had paid. He had damned himself willingly.
"Nagato," Naruto's voice rasped out, raw and grating, unused for hours, "is dead." The statement was flat, devoid of inflection. "I took them." He didn't gesture to his eyes. The implication hung heavy in the damp air. *I claimed the power. I accepted the curse.*
The silence that followed was thicker than the mist. Kakashi's visible eye widened further, disbelief warring with dawning, terrible comprehension. Yamato's knuckles were white on his kunai. From the guard post, two ANBU operatives materialized silently, summoned by the palpable tension, their blank masks fixed on Naruto, hands resting on weapon hilts. The welcoming party had become a cordon.
"Took them?" Kakashi repeated, his voice dangerously quiet. The lazy facade was completely gone now, replaced by the cold focus of the Copy Ninja. "Naruto… those eyes… they're a curse. They consume the user. You saw what they did to Nagato! Why…?" He took another step forward, his hand raised slightly, palm out, a gesture meant to placate, to connect. "Talk to me. Please. What happened after we left?"
The plea, the attempt at connection, was a jagged shard scraping against the raw wound of Naruto's memories. He saw Kakashi's concerned face superimposed over the image of Kakashi's broken body in the future ruins, crushed under falling debris. He saw Yamato's vigilance replaced by the vacant stare of death. The ghosts surged, their whispers rising to a clamor: *Failure. Weakness. Loss.*
The pain behind his eyes flared, a white-hot spike. The drain intensified, a cold hand squeezing his heart. The exhaustion threatened to buckle his knees. He couldn't afford this. Not the questions. Not the concern. Not the crushing weight of their expectations for the boy who no longer existed.
"What happened?" Naruto echoed, his voice dropping lower, colder, carrying the chill of the grave. The swirling rings of the Rinnegan seemed to deepen, absorbing the fading light. "I saw." He took a step forward, ignoring the flinch from Yamato, the subtle shift in the ANBU's stance. His gaze locked onto Kakashi's, boring into the visible eye that held a reflection of his own monstrous visage. "I saw Konoha burn. *Again*. I saw everyone die. *Again*." Each word was a hammer blow, heavy with a despair too vast for tears. "Sasuke. Choji. Shikamaru. Sakura." He paused, the names like poison on his tongue. The image of Hinata, broken and lifeless, flashed before him, searing. He forced it down, the effort making his voice tremble, not with grief, but with the effort of containing the inferno within. "Everyone… turned to ash."
Kakashi recoiled as if struck physically. The raw, apocalyptic certainty in Naruto's voice, the utter absence of the boy's characteristic hope or bluster, was terrifying. This wasn't a nightmare. This was a prophecy spoken from the mouth of a ghost. "Naruto… that… that was Pain. It's over. We *stopped* it. We rebuilt…"
"You didn't stop *anything*!" Naruto's voice cracked, a whip of pure, unadulterated fury slicing through Kakashi's words. It wasn't loud, but it vibrated with a power that made the ANBU tense, their hands tightening on their weapons. The drizzle seemed to hesitate. "You delayed the inevitable! You built sandcastles before the *real* tide!" He took another step, closing the distance. The air around him felt charged, heavy, the Rinnegan pulsing faintly. "They are coming. From the stars. With power that makes Pain look like a child playing with fire." He spat the words, each one dripping with venomous contempt for their ignorance, their fragile peace. "And you… you're all *blind*!"
His gaze swept over them – Kakashi's horrified comprehension, Yamato's rigid readiness, the ANBU's masked alertness. He saw not protectors, not comrades, but obstacles. Fragile pieces on a board destined for annihilation. The cold calculus of his mission crystallized. He needed Konoha. Its resources. Its manpower. But not as it was. Not led by those who couldn't, *wouldn't*, see the true enemy.
The pain flared again, a vice tightening around his skull. The world tilted precariously. He couldn't collapse. Not here. Not before them.
"The naive boy who believed in your peace…" Naruto continued, his voice regaining its chilling flatness, though laced with the strain of immense effort. He straightened, forcing his trembling legs to lock. He met Kakashi's gaze one last time, the swirling violet voids reflecting no light, only an abyss. "…died in those ashes. With them."
He didn't wait for their reaction. He didn't look at Yamato or the ANBU. He simply turned, his movements stiff but deliberate, and walked towards the massive gates of Konoha. Not as a returning hero. Not as a prodigal son. But as a herald of a future only he could see, carrying the eyes of the enemy and the soul of a ghost forged in the fires of a lost tomorrow. The rain washed over him, failing to cleanse the aura of chilling darkness that radiated from him, a shadow falling across the rebuilt gates of the village he had once sworn to protect, now viewing it only as a weapon to be reforged in the brutal crucible of the war to come. The path ahead led not to home, but to a confrontation far greater than any he had faced in the Rain Country mountains. The ghost had walked through the gates, and Konoha would never be the same.