Mito spoke carefully. "When I reinforced Naruto's seal, I noticed something. Whoever applied the Eight Trigrams Seal made some... unusual modifications. I don't understand their purpose, so I only strengthened what was already there. It's nothing like yours."
"Unusual modifications?!" Sasuke's voice sharpened.
The pieces were falling into place. The beast sealed inside Naruto had to be the Nine-Tails, the same demon fox that had ravaged Konoha twelve years ago. And if that was true, then only one person could have performed the sealing.
The Fourth Hokage.
After everything the recent visions had shown him, after glimpsing the darkness festering beneath the shinobi world, after learning what the village's leadership was capable of, Sasuke's mind raced down darker paths.
A Kage bore the weight of the ninja world's ugliest secrets. The Fourth Kazekage had been willing to poison his own wife and weaponize his own son. So what about the Fourth Hokage? What had he been willing to do to an orphan like Naruto?
Sasuke looked toward Hokage Rock, toward the carved face everyone called a hero, and felt nothing.
"Don't overthink it." Mito patted his shoulder, then turned to leave for the old Senju compound. But first, there were three other Uzumaki he needed to see.
Naruto Uzumaki. Karin Uzumaki. And Fuso Uzumaki.
As it happened, the three of them were already together.
Learning he had living clansmen had sent Naruto into a state of barely contained excitement. Every grievance from earlier had been tossed aside, forgotten in the rush of discovering he wasn't the last of his bloodline.
Karin felt much the same. She'd already started thinking of Naruto as a little brother, quietly hoping to make a good impression so she could belong here, in this place that finally felt like it might become home.
Fuso was a mother whose own son's fate hung in the balance. Seeing these two young Uzumaki stirred something protective in her, and the warmth was impossible to resist. Between her gentle presence and their shared hunger for family, both teenagers had gone soft and obedient as lambs...
As if.
This was Naruto Uzumaki. Obedient wasn't in his vocabulary.
"Hey, hey, Karin."
"You can call me big sister, you know."
"No way!" His face scrunched up. "Aunt Mikoto already declared Sasuke my older brother and that ticks me off enough! I don't need a sister on top of it, ya know!"
"But you're younger than me. And half a head shorter..."
"Can we not talk about height?! I'm still growing! I'll be taller than all of you, especially that jerk Sasuke!"
He sidled up closer. "Hey, hey, you got that cool mask as a prize, right? What's it even for?"
Karin thought back to the reward she'd earned from the quiz.
The Hannya mask materialized from nowhere, emerging from her forehead and dropping to the floor as a solid object. Naruto scooped it up, pressed it over his face, and launched into an exaggerated Kyōgen performance, hamming it up to make Karin and Fuso laugh.
Nearly a decade of pranking experience counted for something. He had a gift for this.
Within minutes, both women had forgotten every shadow hanging over them.
In a bare room deep inside the Central Tower, windowless and spartan, three people doubled over with laughter, finding in each other the comfort of family. The empty space grew warm.
"Naruto," Fuso said, wiping her eyes. "You really are a charming boy."
"Mm-hmm!" Karin nodded hard. She couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed like this.
Naruto scratched his mop of blond hair, a little embarrassed. "Alright! The great Naruto Uzumaki will now perform a super-ultra-mega powerful jutsu for your entertainment!"
Fuso and Karin perked up. "Super-ultra-mega powerful?"
"Heh heh."
He flashed a cocky grin, crossed his thumbs with the left on top, and formed the Ram seal.
"A jutsu invented by none other than the great Naruto Uzumaki himself! Powerful enough to take down even Old Man Third Hokage..."
"Sexy Jutsu!"
A cloud of smoke erupted, and Naruto vanished.
In his place stood a buxom blonde in twin pigtails, the Hannya mask perched rakishly on the side of her head, striking a pose that could only be described as devastating.
"Mmm-hmm~"
Man or woman, it didn't matter. Everyone in the room froze.
Fuso stared. The Land of Rain is too small. I never imagined the outside world was this... expansive.
Karin stared. I think a door to a whole new world just opened.
The "beauty" suppressed a sly smile.
"But wait, there's more!"
She pressed her index and middle fingers together, crossed her hands into the signature cross seal. The final hand sign of the Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu, invented by the Second Hokage himself.
Chakra surged, concentrated into a single pulse.
"Harem Jutsu!"
Smoke billowed.
But the upgraded jutsu never materialized.
Instead, the room plunged into darkness.
The temperature plummeted. An icy draft swirled through the sealed, windowless space where no wind had any right to exist.
"Heh heh heh heh..."
The sound bypassed their ears and crawled straight into their skulls. Low, wet, whispering. Nothing human could produce a voice like that.
The Shadow Clones hadn't appeared. What had appeared was a bone-deep chill creeping up the "beauty's" spine. Something loomed behind her.
Something was there.
Under the bloodless stares of Fuso and Karin, the "beauty" realized that whatever stood at her back was something far, far worse than a failed jutsu.
"N-no way... please tell me that's not a ghost..."
The voice was honeyed and feminine, but that verbal tic gave the game away immediately.
Karin pointed behind Naruto with a trembling finger. "N-Naruto... b-behind... behind you..."
"Heh heh heh heh..."
"I-I-I-I..." The "beauty" squeezed her eyes shut. "The great Naruto Uzumaki isn't scared of any s-s-stupid ghost! Y-you don't scare me! S-stay away from me!"
Then, cutting through the dread, came a familiar metallic voice:
"Cost-free activation: Reaper Death Seal, Release. Successfully executed."
"Consumable item: Shinigami Mask confirmed. Recovered."
The Hannya mask vanished from the "beauty's" head.
Unlike the Reaper Death Seal itself, which required a specific sequence of hand signs ending with palms pressed together and the jutsu's name called aloud, the Release version worked differently. You wore the mask, gathered your chakra in one burst, and it activated on its own.
The blonde bombshell, also known as the failed prankster Naruto Uzumaki, or if you preferred, Naruko, cracked one eye open and dared to look behind her.
What she saw nearly made her wet herself.
A Shinigami towered over her, four or five times her height. Draped in white burial cloth, its skin mottled purple, its face a nightmare of jutting fangs. Clenched between those teeth was a gleaming cleaver.
Worst of all was the translucence. She could see through it. Ghostly flames flickered and swayed around its half-real body.
Naruto, who had feared ghosts and spirits since childhood, wished the floor would swallow him whole.
The Shinigami wasn't finished. Fingers that had never known a nail trimmer wrapped around the cleaver's handle. A tongue, purple-black and inhuman, dragged across the blade's edge.
"No no no no no, don't eat me! I taste terrible!"
Naruto screamed.
But the Shinigami drove the cleaver into its own stomach.
"Huh?"
The blade tore a massive gash across the death god's belly. Inside was nothing but void, lightless and organless.
Naruto swallowed hard.
From that dark wound, a ball of spectral flame tumbled out and landed right beside him.
"AAAAAHHHH! SOMEBODY HELP MEEEEE!"