Deep within the underground shelter beneath the Hokage Rock.
The fortified cavern was densely packed with people.
Thousands of civilians who had escaped certain death were huddled together like sardines in a can: men, women, the elderly, and children...
The heat and stench of sweat produced by thousands of people crowded together, mixed with the intense, metallic smell of blood wafting from the casualty zone, and the sharp, acrid scent of disinfectant.
It formed a sickening "odor" called fear and death, pressing down heavily on everyone's chest, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
This was Konoha's largest and sturdiest shelter. Compared to the explosions,轰鸣, and shouts of battle on the surface, there was only a suffocating silence here.
But this silence was not peace.
It was terror.
"Water... please, give me some water..."
"Waaah, Mommy, I'm scared..."
The moans of the injured were no longer clear cries of pain, but fragmented sounds squeezed out from deep in their throats. Occasionally, someone unable to bear the agony would let out a short, sharp scream.
Children, having cried for too long, were mostly reduced to physiological sobs. They curled up in their parents' arms, their bodies trembling from fear.
The women's repressed weeping never ceased. Their faces were smeared and blurred by ash and tears, leaving only primal fear and confusion about their unknown fate.
Every time a muffled explosion and tremor came from the rock ceiling above, all sound in the shelter would instantly vanish.
Thousands of people felt collectively choked, looking up in horror, staring intently at the seemingly sturdy dome, their hearts nearly stopping.
Only after the tremors passed would there be a collective, trembling exhale of relief, followed by more subdued crying.
Most corners of the shelter were enveloped in dark shadows. The limited lighting was mainly concentrated on the emergency treatment area for the wounded.
"Over here! I need hemostatic clamps over here!"
"Bandages! Does anyone have clean bandages?!"
"Shizune-san! This child is failing, quickly, look!"
The medical ninja, led by Shizune, were few and far between. Most were constantly rushing between the injured. Their shadows danced and stretched across the rock walls, distorted by the flickering lights.
"Huff... huff..."
Shizune's breathing was heavy. Her medical uniform, once clean, was now so stained with blood and grime that its original color was unrecognizable. Sweat-soaked strands of hair clung to her pale cheeks.
She was completely focused on treating a severely wounded Konoha ninja in front of her. Shrapnel from a blast tag was deeply embedded in the person's lung. Every breath sounded like a heart-stopping gurgle of blood.
Debridement, probing, stopping the bleeding, carefully removing the fragments, suturing the ruptured blood vessels...
Shizune's movements were fast, yet precise like a machine. After all, she had repeated every step dozens of times, working almost entirely on muscle memory.
"Needle holder." She reached out instinctively without looking up.
"Shizune-nee-san," Karin, who was assisting her, quickly said, "We've run out of needle holders."
Shizune froze, then quickly turned her head, her face immediately changing color.
"Karin." A calm voice arrived just in time, accompanied by rapid, yet steady, footsteps.
Uzumaki Naruto hurried over, his face etched with a maturity beyond his years. In his hands, he carried the urgently needed needle holders and vascular clamps, which had been quickly sterilized.
"Naruto, perfect timing!" Karin inhaled greedily, her strained nerves instantly relaxing for a moment.
Shizune did not waste time on thanks. She snatched the instruments and immediately buried herself back in the bloody surgery.
Naruto paid no mind. He silently took a step back to give them space, his eyes briefly flickering as he looked at the wounded ninja's pale face and gruesome injuries.
"Naruto."
Just then, another clear voice came from nearby. Naruto immediately snapped out of his thoughts and looked in that direction.
Uchiha Sasuke and another medical ninja were standing by a different makeshift operating table.
Sasuke's lowered face also showed gravity. His dark eyes flashed with a scarlet light; his Three-Tomoed Sharingan had been active for a long time.
"Here." Naruto quickly stepped forward and handed over the sutures and hemostatic cotton they urgently needed.
"Thanks." Sasuke looked up, smiled at him as he took them, and passed them to the medical ninja beside him.
He was using the Sharingan's dynamic vision and insight to point out the locations of minute blood vessels and nerve bundles, assisting the medical ninja with nerve connection surgery.
Naruto stepped back again, his gaze moving away from the severely injured ninja. He slowly lifted his head and surveyed the entire shelter.
The makeshift stretchers on the floor were long exhausted. Later casualties had to lie directly on the ground. Groans of pain and uncontrollable screams from the critically injured rose and fell.
Blood pooled on the floor in viscous, dark red puddles. Konoha ninja constantly stepped into them, making soft squelching sounds that sent shivers down the spine.
The lightly wounded were sitting or lying down, most with hollow, vacant eyes, clearly still recovering from the terrifying experience.
Most of them were covered in sticky Slug clones, which emitted a soft, glowing green light, healing their wounds.
Naruto's eyes scanned the busy crowd, spotting other familiar figures.
Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Choji, Rock Lee, Tenten...
In one corner, Haruno Sakura, usually excellent in theoretical ninja academy classes, was pale as paper.
"Gag!Cough! Cough!" She leaned on the cold rock wall, her body trembling as she retched.
Coming from a civilian background, she had just witnessed a full amputation procedure. The bloody scene and the victim's piercing screams had completely broken her psychological defenses.
By contrast, Yamanaka Ino, who came from the Yamanaka clan and was slightly more experienced, was faring a little better. Though her face was equally pale, she forced herself to endure the discomfort and gently patted Sakura's back.
In fact, students like Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke who still dared to stay and help were the extreme minority.
Most children their age, even ninja-in-training, were seeing this kind of scene for the first time. They simply couldn't withstand the shock of bloodshed and life-or-death peril.
Most had been moved to relatively clean areas to comfort others, or were simply curled up and trembling from being too terrified to offer any help.
But there was no other choice.
The scale of death, injury, and destruction caused by the Akatsuki organization's terror attack on Konoha to seize the Nine-Tails exceeded even the infamous Uchiha Massacre.
During the Uchiha Massacre, because the Uchiha clan's district was on the outskirts of Konoha, the main fighting and the threat of 'Hollows' were largely contained to that area.
Coupled with the fact that the 'Kage' and 'Espada' did not launch a large-scale attack then, the impact on other parts of the village was relatively limited, so the civilian casualties were not that high.
This time, it was completely different.
To draw out and tie down the majority of Konoha's forces and conceal their true goal of capturing the Nine-Tails, Akatsuki was ruthlessly creating the maximum amount of chaos and panic.
Whether it was En Oyashiro, who was psychologically twisted and stained with the blood of his own clan, or the ambitious Shinno and his Sky Ninjas, who aimed to restore the Land of the Sky...
They would show no mercy or restraint toward Konoha to achieve their goals.
The surrounding corpses, which had fallen silent and were being quietly covered with white sheets, were lined up in the corner, silently but loudly attesting to the brutality and cruelty of this attack.
Although some casualties could be treated by the Slug clones, the sheer number of wounded was overwhelming.
The slugs had been dispersed to their limits, and the healing ability of each clone was minimal, capable only of sustaining the lives of the critically injured or healing minor wounds.
Most Konoha ninja were fighting desperately outside. The small number of medical ninja left in the shelter was simply insufficient to cope with the many wounded.
Thus, they were forced to expose these still-immature Genin, and even children who hadn't graduated from the Academy, to a confrontation with death that they should have only faced after becoming Genin.
They were forced to use hands that should have been holding kunai for target practice to pass blood-soaked instruments, carry mutilated limbs, and face the raw reality of death...
"This... is this what war is?"
Uzumaki Naruto stared at everything before him. His stomach churned, and his heart hammered wildly in his chest.
Instinctive fear, like a cold tide, repeatedly crashed against his nerves, urging him to look away, to flee this scene of blood and despair.
But the calmness nurtured under Ōtsutsuki Kun'shiki's tutelage firmly held his shoulders, telling him that escape was meaningless.
If he truly hated death, he should face it, understand it, and know its origins.
With that thought, Naruto slowly took a breath. The thick blood and despair in the air seemed to be forcibly absorbed, processed, and endured by him.
His body stopped its faint trembling. His eyes evolved from initial fear, distress, and sorrow into calm rationality.
His perspective felt extracted, transforming him from an involved participant into an absolutely rational observer suspended in the air.
"Sensei," Naruto spoke mentally, "Do you know who these invaders are, and why they are doing this?"
After a brief silence, a voice, seemingly devoid of emotion, resonated deep within his mind.
"The Land of Rain. 'Akatsuki' is an organization founded in Amegakure before and during the Third Great Shinobi War."
"Their initial philosophy was to build a bridge of hope toward peace through communication between people and dialogue between nations, striving to bring genuine peace to their country without relying on extreme force."
Naruto's pupils slightly contracted. This answer clearly contradicted the cruelty he saw before him.
However, Kun'shiki's next words revealed the root of this contradiction.
"However, the leader of Amegakure at the time was misled and incited by Shimora Danzō, the head of Konoha's Root ANBU."
"Hanzō feared that Akatsuki's growing reputation might threaten his rule, and even make the formerly staunch Amegakure weak and lose its will to fight."
"Thus, using 'peace negotiation' as a pretext, he tricked Akatsuki's three core members into attending a meeting. At the meeting site, Hanzō colluded with Danzō and set an ambush."
"They used the life of one core member, Konan, to coerce another core member, Nagato, into killing the first leader, Yahiko. Because Nagato could not bring himself to do it, Yahiko voluntarily impaled himself on the kunai in Nagato's hand."
Kun'shiki's tone remained flat, but Naruto could sense the immense, cold cruelty masked beneath that flatness.
"Thus, Akatsuki, having lost its dearest friend and its faith, was guided toward another extreme in its ultimate pain and despair."
"Nagato became the second leader. He concluded that in this world, people would never truly understand each other. Therefore, he devised an extreme plan."
"To create a weapon powerful enough to instantly destroy a nation, and use humanity's fear of pain and death to forcibly suppress war and guide the world toward peace."
Kun'shiki's narration ended there, without adding any subjective evaluation, simply presenting the coldest facts to Naruto's consciousness.
Uzumaki Naruto fell into a prolonged silence, standing still as if turned into a stone statue.
Compared to his peers, and even most ninja, he was intimately familiar with the history of the Shinobi world thanks to his "Sensei's" careful instruction over the years.
He knew of the Land of Rain, often called the "Crying Country."
He knew even better that its strategic position, sandwiched between the Great Nations of Fire, Earth, and Wind, made it the battlefield for the Three Great Hidden Villages during the Second Great Shinobi War.
The Great Nations, for their own benefit, brought war to the Land of Rain. Countless Rain Country civilians were displaced, lost their families, and lost their lives in the war started by the Great Nations.
And Konoha was one of the major participants in that war.
Shimora Danzō, a Konoha Elder, had directly orchestrated and participated in the ambush and slaughter of Akatsuki.
Which meant...
"War created hatred," Naruto's lips moved slightly. He muttered to himself in a voice only he could hear.
His eyes scanned the scene again—the moaning injured, the civilians crying over lost loved ones, the survivors trembling in fear...
He also felt as if he saw the souls of the innocent from the Land of Rain, also weeping in war, hidden in the shadows of history...
"And hatred created new war," Naruto's voice lowered, carrying heavy helplessness and confusion.
Whether it was the original reincarnation of Asura's chakra or the current Naruto educated in a different world, no matter the change, he genuinely hated war.
The difference was that the Naruto now saw not just Konoha's pain, but the pain of centuries of war across the entire Shinobi world.
But he was too young now to see a way out.
He could only see an endless spiral.
Who is right? Who is wrong?
To Konoha, Akatsuki, who attacked and caused casualties, was the enemy. To Nagato, Konoha, who had caused him pain, was also the enemy.
No matter which side one stood on, they could accuse the other of being wrong, of being evil. No one saw themselves as the evil party.
It was merely a difference in perspective.
Then...
"Do I have a perspective?" Naruto asked himself. "Should I stand on Konoha's side?"
Yes, as a Konoha ninja, I should naturally stand on Konoha's side.
But by standing on Konoha's side, can I eliminate war?
The answer was obvious.
No.
Only standing on Konoha's side could bring peace to Konoha.
And even this false peace was built upon the tyranny against certain groups, just as Uchiha Itachi "sacrificed" the Uchiha for Konoha's peace.
This was not the answer Naruto sought.
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