Back in the future, he found that Orochimaru was nowhere to be seen.
"Did that guy Orochimaru just leave again, all by himself, without bothering with such a complicated jutsu?" Sasuke shook his head helplessly. "Anyway, I should get back to Konoha first."
Sasuke walked away, but the more he thought about it, the less it made sense. Why was there no time-travel jutsu formation on the ground anymore? And why couldn't he find the entrance to Orochimaru's underground base all of a sudden?
He decided not to worry about it. Orochimaru was the kind of man who just wouldn't die, no matter what. He had probably used some other strange jutsu. Sasuke could look into it later.
When he returned to Konoha, everything seemed perfectly ordinary. There didn't seem to be any big celebration. Apparently, Naruto hadn't married anyone in Konoha today.
Sasuke breathed a sigh of relief, entered Konoha, and headed straight for Naruto's home.
"!"
Sasuke opened Naruto's front door, only to find another family living there.
"Can I help you?" A woman opened the door. When she saw who it was, she excitedly called to her husband and children inside, "Look who's here! The great hero, Sasuke!"
Sasuke barely reacted to their excitement. "Excuse me, is this Uzumaki Naruto's home?"
"Uzumaki Naruto... You mean the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki who almost defeated Pain? What a pity..." The woman sighed sadly. "After the way we treated him, he gave his life for us. We're such sinners..."
"What! Naruto's dead?!" Sasuke couldn't accept it. He nearly collapsed to the ground.
The woman nodded, confirming it.
"Why..." Sasuke leaned against the wall as he left. In a daze, he couldn't believe what he'd heard. He asked several more people, but they all gave him the same answer.
Only then did he remember that when Naruto fought Pain, Pain had nearly captured him. Hinata had appeared just in time, sacrificing herself to save Naruto. In response, Naruto had drawn on the Nine-Tails Chakra within him and almost turned into the Nine-Tails. That was what had allowed him to turn the tide.
But Hinata had already been killed, and no one had come to save Naruto. So Naruto had been taken away. Afterward, the Phantom Dragons Nine Consuming Seals must have extracted the Nine-Tails' power, and Naruto had ultimately died at the hands of the Akatsuki.
"No! No, this can't happen! I have to go back again... I have experience this time... I can do it..." Sasuke wanted to find Orochimaru and ask him to help send him back to the past once more.
But that was no longer possible. When Sasuke killed Hinata, he had been disguised as Orochimaru. This put enormous pressure on Konoha from the Hyuga Clan, and the Third Hokage had no choice but to join forces with the Five Great Nations to eliminate Orochimaru. In the end, Jiraiya sealed him away. The scroll containing the sealing jutsu had vanished without a trace after being blasted by the Ten-Tails' Tailed Beast Bomb during the Fourth Shinobi World War.
Without Orochimaru, there was no point even talking about a jutsu to return to the past.
Kaguya Otsutsuki, who should have required Naruto and Sasuke to work together to seal her, had instead been defeated by Sasuke alone. As a result, Sasuke had become the world's great hero.
Sasuke collapsed to the ground, utterly weak. His moment of childishness had caused the person he loved to die.
"This hand... erased Naruto from existence..." Lightning crackled in Sasuke's hand. Then he gently thrust it through his own chest...
-end-
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