Not real silence.
Konoha didn't do real silence.
Even when the village was mad at you, it was loud about it—vendors yelling, kids arguing, someone's dog barking like it had opinions on zoning laws, the distant thunk-thunk of training posts getting punished for existing.
This wasn't that.
This was the kind of quiet people made when they were afraid grief might get them in trouble.
Sandaled feet scuffed dirt and stopped. Cloth whispered. Somebody sniffed and swallowed it like crying was a rule violation. The wind moved through the trees and sounded irritated about being forced to behave.
Naruto stood at the edge of the crowd and tried to make his body pick a shape.
He couldn't.
He felt too tall and too small at the same time, like his bones had forgotten whether he was supposed to be a kid or a weapon or a problem. His shoulders wanted to fold into his chest. His hands wanted to curl into fists. His face kept trying to do that blank thing—like if he went empty enough, nothing could get in.
It didn't work.
The funeral space had been cleared in a wide circle. Too wide. Like they wanted room for everyone's fear.
The coffin sat in the center.
Simple wood. Clean edges. No blood on it. Like death was polite.
The Hokage's hat sat on top like a prop. Like somebody had put it there and expected the old man to walk out any second and yell at them for touching his stuff.
Naruto stared at the hat and felt sick.
He'd seen it a hundred times from far away—on the tower, on the balcony, on a silhouette above the village like rules. He'd never realized how heavy it looked until it wasn't attached to a person anymore.
He swallowed. It didn't help.
The air smelled like incense and damp earth and smoke that had soaked into everything and decided it lived here now. Even the clean parts of Konoha still tasted burnt. The village had scars in places Naruto didn't remember scars being allowed—roofs patched with mismatched tiles, a street corner still blackened, a training pole snapped clean like it had been punched. Someone had scrubbed the blood off, but the stone still looked tired.
Iruka-sensei stood a little ahead and to the left. Naruto could see the back of Iruka's head, the edge of his scarf. That mattered more than it should've. Iruka wasn't hiding. He wasn't performing. He was just… there, taking up space like a human decision.
Asuma stood further up with an unlit cigarette pinched between his fingers. He kept rolling it like muscle memory refused to accept "no smoking" and "mourning" at the same time. Every time the cigarette shifted, Naruto's brain flinched like it expected fire.
Kurenai's eyes were fixed forward like blinking too long might crack something.
Gai stood straight as a spear. Lee was there too—bandaged, too still, jaw clenched like he was trying to hold himself together through pure etiquette. Naruto could tell Lee was vibrating inside his skin. That was what Lee did when he couldn't move and the world demanded he move anyway.
Shikaku Nara stood with his hands behind his back, posture neat. Like a funeral was another formation. Like if he stood correctly, something wouldn't fall.
Inoichi was nearby, and Naruto hated the way Inoichi's eyes kept flicking across the crowd like he was listening for a scream that wasn't happening yet.
Tsume Inuzuka stood with her arms folded and her gaze scanning rooftops like the funeral might get ambushed. Naruto hated that he noticed. Hated that part of him still counted threats even here.
Old habits. Bruises you kept pressing.
And then—
ANBU.
Scattered through the crowd like needles in cloth. Masks with animal faces that didn't show anything. Fox. Hound. Owl. Something with tusks. Something with a cat face that made Naruto's stomach do a weird, sudden drop for reasons he didn't understand.
They stood too straight and too silent, which meant they were watching.
Not just for enemies.
For people.
For reactions. For weakness. For who cried. For who didn't. For who looked angry at the wrong person.
Naruto stared harder at the coffin like he could brute-force himself into being normal.
He tried to think of something noble. Something fitting. Something like the speeches adults always gave at times like this.
All his brain offered him was:
He was always there.
Not in a warm way. In a structure way. Like the Hokage Monument. Like the walls. Like the fact that even if the village hated Naruto, there were still rules, and rules meant things didn't just… break.
Now the rules had a hole in them.
Now Konoha had been invaded in broad daylight.
Now Naruto had watched grown men bleed like they were just—
People.
A few rows ahead, the elders stood together. Homura and Koharu looked smaller than Naruto expected. Not weak. Just… old. Their faces were the kind of old that didn't get to stop working.
And then there was Danzō.
Bandaged. Still. Like a wound that refused to heal.
He didn't look sad.
He looked like he was measuring a room.
Naruto's hands curled into fists before he noticed. He forced them open. Not now. Not here. His body didn't believe him.
A soft rustle moved through the crowd. Heads turned. Someone tried to block the movement with a hand. It didn't work.
A small shape shoved between adult legs like a knife through cloth.
Konohamaru.
He wasn't wearing proper funeral black. He was wearing whatever he'd grabbed. His hair was wild. His cheeks were streaked. His mouth was twisted up like he'd bitten down too hard on his own feelings and they were biting back.
He marched straight toward the coffin. No hesitation. No permission.
Ebisu was behind him, reaching out like he could grab the kid and stop the universe from being true. He didn't.
Because Konohamaru's chakra—whatever that gut-feeling Naruto got when someone was about to explode—was wrong. Too sharp. Too bright. A spark in a dry room.
Konohamaru stopped in front of the coffin and shook. Not in a cute way. In a holding-it-in-so-hard-it-hurts way.
"You—" Konohamaru choked.
His voice cracked like a twig.
He tried again, louder, like volume could fix it. "You were supposed to be the Hokage!"
Naruto flinched.
A few people made that soft, disapproving sound adults made when kids were inconveniently honest.
Konohamaru didn't care. He shoved both hands against the wood like he could push his grandfather back into existence through stubbornness alone.
"You were supposed to— you were supposed to—"
His shoulders hitched. The words wouldn't come. They got stuck somewhere behind his ribs.
Konohamaru's face went red. He blinked hard like he was trying to bully tears back into his eyes.
"I'm gonna be Hokage," he blurted out instead, furious. "I'm gonna be Hokage and I'm gonna fix it! I'm gonna—"
His voice snapped. The rest of the sentence turned into a sob he tried to swallow and couldn't.
Naruto's chest hurt.
Because that was exactly what Naruto used to do. Say it louder. Make it a vow. Turn grief into a goal so you didn't have to feel it eating you alive.
Konohamaru wiped his face with the back of his sleeve like it offended him. He stared at the coffin like it had personally betrayed him.
Then he whispered, small and shaking, "You're a liar."
The words hit Naruto harder than the yelling.
Iruka shifted beside Naruto, close enough that Naruto could feel him without looking. Iruka didn't say anything at first. He just… stood there. Solid. A human wall.
Naruto's eyes stung. He stared harder at the coffin like staring could stop the stinging. It didn't.
Konohamaru turned suddenly, wild-eyed, scanning the crowd like he was looking for someone to blame. His gaze landed on Naruto.
For a second, Naruto thought Konohamaru was going to yell at him. Or punch him. Or accuse him of something impossible like: Why didn't you save him?
Instead, Konohamaru's face scrunched like he was trying not to fall apart in front of strangers. In front of witnesses.
And Naruto—stupid Naruto—couldn't keep his own face steady.
His mouth trembled. His eyes filled.
The first tear spilled anyway.
It wasn't graceful. It wasn't cinematic. It was just his body doing what it did when it finally ran out of pretending.
Naruto's shoulders shook once. He clamped down. Too late. Another tear dropped. Then another.
He made a sound—small, broken—like something in him had snapped clean.
The crowd shifted.
People didn't know what to do with Naruto's grief. They knew what to do with a hero. With a clown. With a problem. They did not know what to do with a kid crying because an old man died.
A few looked away, embarrassed on his behalf.
Naruto hated them for that. Hated that he cared. Hated that his throat hurt like he'd swallowed rocks.
Iruka's hand landed on Naruto's shoulder. Not heavy. Not patronizing. Just there. A touch that said: I'm here. You're not alone. Breathe.
Naruto tried. Air caught in his throat. He exhaled in a shaky rush and tasted salt.
"I—" Naruto started, because he didn't know what else to do. Because his mouth wanted to fill the silence with something useful.
Iruka cut him off gently. "You don't have to say anything."
Naruto shook his head, angry at himself. "It's— it's stupid," he choked out. "I didn't— I didn't even—"
Didn't even know the old man like that. Didn't even talk to him much. Didn't even—
Iruka's grip tightened a fraction. "Stop," Iruka said, quiet but firm.
Naruto blinked at him.
Iruka's eyes were tired, red-rimmed, but steady. "You're allowed," Iruka said.
That was it. Not a speech. Not a lecture. Just permission.
Naruto's face crumpled. The tears came faster, hotter, like his body had been waiting for someone to say it.
Konohamaru stared at Naruto like he'd never seen a bigger kid cry before. Then Konohamaru's own chin wobbled again, and he looked away fast, furious at the betrayal of his own face.
Ebisu finally stepped in, crouching beside Konohamaru, murmuring something tight and careful. Konohamaru didn't really listen. He just stood there and shook and refused to leave the coffin's side like leaving meant accepting.
A voice up front—one of the elders—started speaking.
Something about sacrifice. Something about the Will of Fire. Words that sounded polished and correct and too clean for a coffin.
Naruto barely heard it. They slid off him like rain off stone.
He scanned automatically for Kakashi. Because Kakashi was supposed to be here. Because Kakashi was always there when things got bad, pretending not to care, and that pretending somehow made it survivable.
Kakashi wasn't in the crowd. Not even in the back. Not perched in a tree like a ghost. Not leaning somewhere with that one eye half-lidded like grief was boring.
He just wasn't there.
Naruto's chest tightened again, fresh.
Because even their teacher had been pulled somewhere else. Somewhere important. Somewhere adult. Like Naruto was already being left behind by the people who were supposed to keep him safe.
Naruto wiped his face with his sleeve and hated how wet it got. Hated that everyone could see him. Hated that he'd spent his whole life being watched like a monster, and now he was being watched like a person and it somehow felt worse.
Because people could be disappointed.
Monsters couldn't.
His eyes flicked to the elders again. Koharu stared straight ahead. Homura's mouth had gone thin.
Danzō—
Danzō was watching Konohamaru. Not like a grieving man. Like a man watching an asset learn its first lesson.
Naruto didn't have words for it. He only had the feeling. A bad taste. The kind you got right before a fight.
Then a presence shifted at the edge of the crowd.
Tall. Broad. Wrong in a way Naruto couldn't name at first. White hair. Red lines under the eyes. A posture that looked lazy until you realized it was balanced like a trap.
Jiraiya.
Naruto's brain flashed back to rage—hot springs, humiliation, the word pervert trying to leap onto his tongue like a reflex weapon.
But the man's face wasn't joking today.
Jiraiya stood off to the side, not close, not part of the official cluster, like he didn't want to contaminate the moment by pretending he belonged. His eyes tracked the coffin first. Then the crowd. Then Naruto.
Not pity.
Calculation.
Not cold, exactly. Just… weighing. Like he was looking at a kid and seeing a problem the world hadn't solved yet.
Naruto wiped his face again, rougher, like he could scrub the crying off.
Jiraiya's gaze flicked briefly toward Danzō. Something sharp crossed his mouth—anger, disgust, something older than Naruto. Then he exhaled through his nose like he'd made a decision.
He didn't walk up. He didn't put a hand on Naruto's head. He didn't do any of that fake comforting adult stuff.
He just gave Naruto one small nod.
A promise without words.
Later.
When this is done.
When you can breathe.
Naruto hated that he wanted to believe him. Hated that he did anyway.
The funeral dragged on. Incense burned down. The coffin stayed a coffin. Konohamaru eventually let Ebisu guide him back, step by stubborn step, like walking away was the hardest mission he'd ever been assigned.
Naruto stood until his legs felt numb. Until the crowd started to break apart into clusters. Until people started speaking again in low voices, carefully, like grief was fragile glass.
Iruka stayed beside Naruto the whole time.
When Naruto finally looked up, his eyes were swollen and hot. Iruka didn't pretend not to notice. He just asked, very quietly, "Can you walk?"
Naruto nodded even though he wasn't sure.
Iruka's hand stayed on his shoulder. Naruto moved because someone asked him to. Because someone stayed. Because the village was trying to stand up with a missing spine, and Naruto didn't know how to help except by not falling over.
As they turned away, Naruto glanced back one last time.
The Hokage's hat sat on the coffin, still pretending.
And behind it, Danzō stood with his cane and his bandages and his unreadable face. Watching. Always watching. Too many witnesses.
Naruto didn't know why the thought felt like a warning. He just knew, suddenly and sharply, that the funeral wasn't the end of anything.
It was the beginning of a different kind of war.
I got back to the hospital with incense still stuck in my hair.
It clung like smoke that refused to leave. Like grief that wanted a place to live. I kept finding the scent in weird places—when I turned my head, when I lifted my arm, when I tried to swallow and the back of my throat tasted like ash and sweet resin and goodbye.
The front hall was packed.
Not "busy." Packed.
Stretchers and bandages and med-nin moving like they'd forgotten what "slow" meant. Someone had set up a spill of clean sheets on a bench and they were disappearing one by one like the building was eating them.
Every time someone raised their voice—orders, panic, pain—my shoulders tried to crawl up around my ears.
Old reflex. New world. Same body reaction.
I pressed my palm to the wall once, steadying myself, and let my senses crack open just enough to check the air.
Bad idea.
The chakra in the building was a mess. Thick, sticky exhaustion. Fear that had turned sour. Adrenaline still fizzing in people who hadn't slept since the invasion started.
And under it—beneath the hospital's bright white pretending—there was a quiet, heavy absence that didn't have a chakra signature.
Like a seat at the table you kept looking at even though nobody sat there.
My stomach rolled. I swallowed it down.
I found a corner near a support pillar where I wouldn't be in anyone's way and watched the flow of bodies, because watching was safer than thinking.
A chūnin limped past with his arm tied to his torso, jaw clenched so hard it looked like his teeth might crack. A medic-nin grabbed his sleeve and said something too gentle to match the blood on her hands. He tried to wave her off. She didn't let him.
Two academy kids sat on the floor with their backs against the wall, foreheads pressed together like they were trying to share oxygen. One of them had a bandage wrapped too loose around their ankle, and the other kept retying it over and over because it was the only problem in the universe that would obey.
Someone laughed in the hallway.
It wasn't a happy laugh. It was the kind that fell out when your body forgot what it was doing and tried a random noise to see if the world would answer. It died fast.
My chest tightened.
I thought about Naruto at the funeral—how hard he tried to hold it in, how he failed, how the failure saved him, and how the crowd didn't know what to do with a crying boy who was usually a punchline.
I thought about Konohamaru's hands on the coffin like he could shove reality back where it belonged.
I thought about Iruka's hand on Naruto's shoulder.
I thought about Danzō's eyes.
Watching. Measuring.
A door down the hall opened hard. Boots. ANBU.
Two of them, masks blank, voices low. And between them—Kakashi.
He looked… fine. The way Kakashi always looked fine. Which meant he wasn't. His visible eye flicked toward me for half a second.
Apology.
Warning.
Don't make this harder.
Then one of the ANBU said something I didn't catch, and Kakashi didn't argue. He let himself be pulled down the corridor like he was a resource being reassigned.
Not a person. Not a teacher.
A tool the village needed now.
I watched them go, and the building felt colder. I didn't even realize I'd stopped breathing until my lungs burned. I sucked in air carefully, like it might hurt.
Everything tasted wrong.
People were trying to be brave. Trying to be useful. Trying to pretend the village hadn't almost died. Trying to pretend the Hokage hadn't.
The hospital lights flickered once—just a weak pulse. Like the building itself was tired.
I leaned my forehead against the wall and closed my eyes. A memory tried to rise up—old yelling, old rules, old adults turning pain into "lesson." I shoved it back down hard. Not now. Not here.
When I opened my eyes again, my reflection in the window looked… normal. Pink hair, glasses, a face that could pass for a kid.
My chakra senses disagreed.
Konoha felt like a person trying to stand after a punch to the spine. Everyone locking their knees and pretending that was the same thing as being okay.
I pushed off the wall and kept walking.
Because the village was standing up with a missing spine, and somebody had to keep moving like that meant something.
And because the thought kept echoing, quiet and awful and true:
Nothing's going back to normal after this.