Konoha.
Sunlight filtered through the trees, now even lusher after the reconstruction, and fell across the tidy streets.
The villagers went about their work, merchants conducted business as usual, and ninja hurried off on missions.
On the surface, everything was normal.
Yet an invisible weight hung in the air. Almost every ninja and civilian in Konoha felt as though a heavy stone pressed against their heart.
They all knew.
They knew that Naruto Uzumaki was now the newly appointed Sixth Hokage.
They knew that this far-too-young Hokage was out there waging a war aimed at "unification."
But no one dared discuss it openly.
Whether on street corners, in back alleys, or at the Mission Assignment Center, people tacitly avoided the subject.
Question his decisions?
That would take tremendous courage.
And forty more heads than anyone else had to spare.
Because everyone clearly remembered the ninjutsu he had used to destroy Konoha during this year's Joint Chunin Exams.
Naruto really did dare to attack the people of Konoha!
He really did dare to drop that "nuclear bomb" over everyone's heads in Konoha-a bomb powerful enough to erase the village from the map!
Although he had rebuilt Konoha in the end, the despair and helplessness that had swept through the village in that instant, along with the lingering terror they felt after learning its true power, had branded themselves into every resident's heart.
Fear of absolute power suppressed every objection and concern.
They could only choose to believe in him-or, at the very least, obey in silence.
Amid this oppressive atmosphere, Kakashi Hatake and one of Naruto's Wood Clones quietly arrived at Orochimaru's laboratory.
Kakashi's usual laid-back expression had vanished, replaced by a deeply furrowed brow, shadowed eyes, and troubled silence.
His exposed right eye had lost its usual dead-eyed lethargy. It