Chapter 7: Blood of the Covenant
The seasons in Konoha bled into one another, marking the passage of time with the falling of leaves and the melting of snow. For the village, it was a year of relative peace and rebuilding. For Naruto Uzumaki, it was a year of silence.
He had become a ghost within the village walls. The boisterous, unpredictable ninja who once painted the monument and screamed about becoming Hokage was dead. In his place stood a soldier of terrifying efficiency. Missions that would take a squad of chunin three days, Naruto completed alone in one. He filed his reports with military precision—no complaints, no embellishments, no emotion.
He ate alone. He trained alone. When his friends tried to bridge the gap, they were met with a polite but impenetrable wall of indifference. Even Sakura, who tried the hardest, eventually stopped knocking on his door, disheartened by the cold eyes that looked through her rather than at her.
Internally, Naruto—or the entity that now fully embraced the soul of the King's Grandmaster—calculated.
He had intended to launch his crusade immediately, to crush the Akatsuki and the looming shadow of Kara under the weight of his new empire. But the Balance was not yet right. To strike now would be premature. The Akatsuki were moving, creating chaos. Kara was waiting in the deep unknown.
"Let them move," Naruto had decided, sitting in the meditative silence of his apartment. "Let them tip the scales. The heavier their sins, the more absolute my judgment will be."
So, he waited. He let a year pass, solidifying his control, sharpening his senses, and wearing the mask of the dutiful shinobi.
Until the Hokage had enough.
The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the Hokage's office. Tsunade sat behind her desk, a stack of mission reports in front of her. She didn't look up as the door opened.
"Mission complete," Naruto's voice cut through the air, devoid of inflection. "The bandits in the Earth border region have been neutralized. Here is the scroll."
He placed the report on the desk and turned to leave.
"Wait."
Naruto stopped, his hand hovering over the doorknob. He didn't turn around.
Tsunade stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. The sound was sharp, frustrated. "I'm done with this, Naruto. I've been patient. I've given you space. I've respected your grief over the Sasuke mission. But this… this isn't grieving anymore."
She walked around the desk, her eyes boring into his back. "You're a shell. You function, you fight, you kill, but you're not here. I am your Hokage, but I am also…" She hesitated, her voice softening just a fraction. "I care about you. Talk to me. What is going on?"
Naruto remained motionless for a long moment. Then, slowly, he turned. His blue eyes were calm, unsettlingly so, like a deep ocean that hid leviathans beneath the surface.
"You want the truth?" Naruto asked.
"I demand it," Tsunade replied firmly.
Naruto held her gaze. "Then follow me."
He opened the door and walked out. Tsunade blinked, surprised by the sudden compliance, but quickly grabbed her coat and followed.
They walked through the village in silence. The villagers waved as they passed, calling out to their hero and their leader. Naruto acknowledged no one. He walked with a stride that was smooth and rhythmic, his eyes fixed on the horizon. Tsunade kept pace, her mind racing with questions.
They passed the bustling market, the academy, and finally, the heavy wooden gates of Konoha. The chunin guards snapped to attention, but Naruto walked past them without a glance, stepping out onto the dirt road that led away from the village.
A few hundred meters out, surrounded by the quiet rustle of the forest, Naruto stopped.
"We're far enough," Tsunade said, crossing her arms. "Now, talk."
Naruto didn't answer her immediately. Instead, he tilted his head slightly to the side.
"You can leave," he said to the empty air.
Tsunade frowned. "Who are you talking to?"
"The four ANBU Black Ops in the trees," Naruto said calmly. "Two at three o'clock, one at nine, and the captain directly behind us at twelve o'clock high. I told you to follow me, Baa-chan. Not your watchdogs."
The leaves rustled as the hidden ANBU shifted uncomfortably, their concealment broken effortlessly.
Tsunade sighed, rubbing her temples. "Stand down," she ordered loud enough for them to hear. "Return to the village. That is an order."
"But Lady Hokage—" a voice called from the canopy.
"Go!" Tsunade barked.
There was a flicker of movement, four distinct shunsins, and then their chakra signatures vanished toward the village.
Tsunade turned back to Naruto, her expression serious. "They're gone. We're alone."
"Good," Naruto said. The wind picked up, tossing his golden hair. "I brought you here because I have made a decision. My path is diverging from Konoha's. The war I am preparing for… the village cannot understand it. Not yet."
Tsunade stiffened. "Naruto, that sounds like treason."
"It is evolution," Naruto corrected. He took a step toward her, his intense aura flaring slightly, causing the air to grow heavy. "But before I take the next step, I needed to speak to you. Not as the Hokage. But as blood."
Tsunade's eyes widened. "What?"
"I do not want you as my enemy," Naruto said, his voice dropping an octave, carrying a solemn weight. "The world is full of threats I must dismantle. But you… you are the granddaughter of Mito Uzumaki. I am the son of Kushina Uzumaki. We are the last remnants of a destroyed lineage."
Tsunade froze. The connection was something she had always known, a distant fact in the back of her mind, but hearing Naruto acknowledge it so openly—and using it as a basis for allegiance—shook her. He wasn't appealing to the Will of Fire. He was appealing to the blood in her veins.
"You… you knew?" she whispered.
"I know more than you can imagine," Naruto replied. He extended his hand toward her. "I cannot stay in Konoha any longer. My throne awaits. But I will not leave you in the dark. Come with me, and see the truth."
"Go where?" Tsunade asked, wariness battling with curiosity. "We can't just walk away."
"We aren't walking."
Naruto grabbed her shoulder.
Before Tsunade could react, the shadows beneath their feet erupted. It wasn't the Flying Thunder God technique; there was no seal, no flash of yellow. It was darkness—thick, viscous, and cold. It swallowed them whole, warping space around them.
Tsunade gasped as the sensation of falling overtook her, the light of the Fire Country forest snuffing out in an instant.
A heartbeat later, the darkness receded.
The smell hit her first—salt, brine, and the crisp freshness of the ocean. The sound of crashing waves replaced the rustle of leaves.
Tsunade stumbled slightly as solid ground returned beneath her feet. She looked around, blinking rapidly. They were standing on a high cliff overlooking a vast expanse of ocean. Below them, shrouded in a mist that seemed to hum with spiritual energy, lay a sprawling civilization. It was not a ruin. It was a fortress of white stone and blue light, pulsing with life.
"Where…" Tsunade breathed, her eyes wide as she took in the impossible sight. "Where are we?"
Naruto stepped to the edge of the cliff, his white cloak—which she hadn't noticed him donning—billowing in the sea breeze. He looked down at the city below, his expression softening into something possessive and regal.
"We are home, Baa-chan," Naruto replied, his voice echoing with the authority of a King. "This is the land of our fallen brethren. The Empire of the Whirlpool."
"Uzushiogakure," she whispered.
"Reborn," Naruto corrected. "And waiting for its war."
Chapter 7.2: The Gathering of the Lost
Tsunade stepped closer to the precipice, her hands gripping the rough stone of the cliff edge until her knuckles turned white. Below, the city didn't just exist; it thrived. Massive structures of white masonry rose from the islands, connected by bridges that glowed with faint, azure luminescence. It was a stark departure from the wooden architecture of the Elemental Nations—it was cold, pristine, and imposingly beautiful.
"This… this is impossible," Tsunade stammered, her voice lost to the wind. She spun toward Naruto, her eyes searching his face for a sign of deception. "Uzushiogakure was destroyed. Wiped from the map decades ago during the Second Great War. The combined might of Kiri, Iwa, Suna and Kumo reduced this place to rubble and salt. I've seen the reports. I've seen the ruins myself!"
She gestured wildly at the metropolis below. "So how? How is this here? How did you hide an entire civilization from the Five Great Nations?"
Naruto remained impassive, watching the city with a calm, proprietary gaze. "The ruins you saw were real, Baa-chan. They were a scar left by the world's fear of our bloodline. But a scar is just tissue that has healed over a wound. It does not mean the body is dead."
He turned to face her, his golden hair framing a face that seemed etched from marble. "You ask how? It began with a search."
Naruto began to walk along the cliff edge, his hands clasped behind his back.
"The Uzumaki were scattered," he explained, his voice low and rhythmic. "Hunted like animals for their chakra, enslaved for their vitality, or forced into hiding, terrified of their own names. I found them. One by one, I tracked down the faint pulses of our bloodline across the continent. I pulled them from the gutters of Kusagakure, from the slave markets of the chaotic borderlands, from the dark cells where they were being used as batteries."
Tsunade felt a chill run down her spine. She thought of Kushina, of the tragedy of their clan. To think there were others… suffering in silence while Konoha did nothing.
"But it is not just the Uzumaki," Naruto continued, stopping to look down at a bustling plaza below where tiny figures moved in coordinated harmony. "A King needs subjects, and a war needs soldiers. The shinobi system is flawed. It chews people up and spits them out the moment they are no longer useful. It creates debris."
He looked at Tsunade, his blue eyes piercing. "I gathered the debris."
"Debris?" Tsunade repeated, frowning.
"Orphans left to rot in rain-soaked battlefields," Naruto listed, his tone darkening. "Rogues who were branded criminals simply for surviving when their villages wanted them dead. Outcasts. Misfits. Those with bloodlines the world deemed 'cursed' or 'abominable.' I offered them what the Great Nations never could."
He spread his arms wide, encompassing the city below.
"I didn't just give them a home," Naruto said, his voice resonating with absolute conviction. "I gave them a purpose. I took their broken pieces and forged them into something stronger. Something unified."
Tsunade looked back at the city. She saw it differently now. It wasn't just a hidden village; it was a sanctuary for the rejected. It was an army built from the very victims of the wars she and the other Kage had presided over.
"You built an army of ghosts," Tsunade whispered.
"I built an empire of survivors," Naruto corrected. "Konoha preaches the Will of Fire, burning bright to protect the leaves. But here? Here we are the shadow that swallows the flame. We are the Balance that corrects the world's errors."
He stepped closer to her, his presence looming. "The world thought it had destroyed the Uzumaki. It thought it could discard the weak and the broken without consequence. But I have gathered them all here. And soon, the world will answer to them."