The last frame of his memory was leaving the battlefield after teaming up with Uchiha Sasuke to completely devour Otsutsuki Urashiki using that ridiculously long-named Rasengan.
Naruto's vision gradually cleared, and the first thing he saw was an unfamiliar ceiling.
Why... am I lying in bed?
He felt a wave of confusion. Had the battle ended? Did he collapse from exhaustion? That seemed unlikely.
Immediately after, an extremely strange and hard-to-ignore sensation came from his right eye.
It wasn't pain, but rather the awkward feeling of a strange energy source being lodged there, uncontrollably and continuously draining a considerable amount of Chakra.
Although it wasn't harming him for the moment, it was constantly drawing his energy, causing physical discomfort.
Naruto frowned, and the instant he mentally commanded the unnecessary drain to "stop"—
The feeling of continuous Chakra extraction actually stopped immediately! The strange energy source's "idling" ceased.
Inside the ward, everyone who had fallen silent due to the strange change in Naruto's right eye was watching the heterochromatic pupils—blue on the left, black and gold on the right—with confusion and vigilance, especially the eye with the black base color radiating an inhuman golden glow.
Even the well-traveled Jiraiya, who had traversed the Ninja World for many years, had never seen such a peculiar eye.
However, just as they were filled with shock and uncertainty, something even more surprising occurred.
The strange color on Naruto's newly opened, still confused, black-based golden right eye quickly faded! It returned to a normal eye.
Naruto himself felt the change in his eye, but he was mostly confused about why everyone else was staring at him with such shocked and complicated expressions.
"...Are you... Naruto?"
A female voice, filled with caution, worry, and residual fear, sounded hesitantly, breaking the eerie atmosphere in the ward.
Uzumaki Kushina took half a step forward, her blue eyes, similar to Naruto's, locking onto him, wanting to confirm if the person who had just woken up was still the son she knew.
"Huh? Why would you ask that?"
Naruto was even more baffled by the question, and he propped himself up on his arms to sit up.
"What happened? Why am I here?" Naruto's voice was hoarse from just waking up, but his tone and demeanor were exactly as usual.
This perfectly natural reaction was like the most effective cardiac stimulant, instantly injecting relief into the hearts of everyone who cared about him.
Distinct sounds of sighs of relief rose and fell throughout the ward.
As for Uchiha Satsuki, who was closest to Naruto, the huge stone that had been hanging in her heart finally crashed to the ground when she heard his familiar voice.
The next moment, she stepped forward, wrapped her arms around him, and hugged the newly sitting-up Naruto tightly, as if using all her strength!
Naruto was stunned by the sudden embrace, but feeling the slight trembling of the girl in his arms, he immediately understood that something extremely terrible must have happened while he was unconscious, causing her great worry.
He subconsciously raised his hand and patted Satsuki's back, silently comforting her in this way.
Nearby, Uzumaki Boruto watched the scene of his "Master" from this world tightly embracing the other "Dad," but more than that, he was concerned about the fleeting glimpse of the abnormality he had just witnessed.
He quietly leaned closer to Uchiha Sasuke and whispered, "Sasuke-san... that eye just now..."
Sasuke's voice was low. "Yes. Although the color is different... it's very similar to your power."
But at this moment, Naruto, who had just comforted Satsuki and was trying to recall and make sense of the situation, suddenly heard a voice full of terror and hysteria from deep within his Soul.
"No—!!! Now... what exactly... is happening?! Did the Reincarnation succeed?! Why... why am I still trapped here?!"
The voice was somewhat familiar... it was Otsutsuki Urashiki.
——————
After a comprehensive and detailed examination at the hospital confirmed that Naruto's bodily functions, Chakra circulation, and even mental stability were generally sound—with no other obvious hidden dangers besides the mysterious black diamond mark and the unknown eye change—Naruto didn't even have time to talk properly with his mother before he was "forcefully" "borrowed" by Uchiha Sasuke and taken to a relatively quiet forest outside Konoha Village.
Kushina clearly had a belly full of questions and worries she wanted to discuss with her son, but Jiraiya seemed to understand something. He stopped Kushina, who wanted to follow, only saying, "Just remember to bring Naruto back safe and sound later."
The Village was currently in the chaos of reconstruction, with evacuated villagers needing to be guided back and reassured, and all entrances and exits requiring strict inspection to identify any spies who might slip in or try to leak information during the turmoil... However, completely concealing the news of the mythical-level battle that had taken place virtually at the Village gates was almost impossible.
In the forest, away from the Village's noise, Naruto finally had time to calm down and confront the drastic changes that had occurred to him.
When he opened his palm and saw the dark, deep black diamond mark there, he understood what had happened to him.
He... was almost subjected to Possession?!
A strong wave of lingering fear made him involuntarily shiver. But immediately following that was gratitude toward his parents and Kurama.
At the most critical moment, they fought desperately in the deepest reaches of his consciousness, successfully Sealing and isolating the intruder.
According to Minato, Urashiki's power had been forcibly merged with his body, but Urashiki's Soul, personality, and consciousness were completely confined by the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style.
Now existing inside him like a prisoner... his insides were certainly getting "lively," Naruto couldn't help but joke self-deprecatingly to lighten the mood.
Before the lingering fear had completely subsided, he "heard" Urashiki's frantic screams of despair, collapse, and resentment coming from deep within his Soul.
However, this noise was quickly and forcefully "suppressed" by Kurama—Naruto wasn't interested in knowing what "gentle" methods the Nine-Tailed used to shut Urashiki up.
"Now, try to control the eye that appeared earlier." Uchiha Sasuke interrupted Naruto's thoughts. They were currently standing by a clear lake. Boruto and Uchiha Satsuki, who had insisted on coming along and was standing close to Naruto, were also present. Everyone's gaze was focused on Naruto.
Naruto nodded and focused his attention on his right eye. A sense of awkwardness, like calling upon a new "organ," came over him, but he could feel that this invocation wasn't forced; it was more like... an assigned authority.
With a slight shift in his thoughts—his right eye suddenly changed!
The original clear blue faded, the whites of his eye turned pitch black, and the pupil became gold, exactly matching the state it had unconsciously displayed when he woke up.
Naruto lowered his head and used the calm, mirror-like surface of the lake to clearly see his reflection: his left eye was the usual bright blue, but his right eye was this strange black-based golden pupil... Although heterochromia was pretty cool, Naruto felt he was past his chuunibyou phase.
It wasn't like the Rinnegan, it was similar, but it wasn't Boruto's Jōgan either... "How is it? Do you feel anything strange? Any discomfort or rejection?"
Sasuke asked a series of questions, carefully observing every subtle change in Naruto's expression and Chakra flow.
"...Hmm, controlling it... there's no hindrance, it feels just like using my own eye."
Naruto carefully sensed it, and then his face showed an expression mixed with novelty, strangeness, and disbelief. Although the situation was dangerous, for Naruto, he had essentially gained a powerful cheat code after waking up.
"I guess... it's used like this?"
Naruto said, sounding unsure, and the golden light in his right pupil suddenly intensified!
The next moment, a rift quietly tore open in the air where he was looking! The rift quickly expanded, forming a deep, bottomless black portal!
It was precisely the Space-Time Ninjutsu that Otsutsuki Urashiki had used, classified as a Kekkai Mōra level technique—[Yomotsu Hirasaka]!
And just as everyone's attention was completely captured by Naruto's newly acquired ability, no one noticed that in the shadow of a hidden cliff face far away, a strange creature, half pitch-black and half pale white—Black Zetsu—was staring intently at the blonde boy by the lake who had opened the Yomotsu Hirasaka with his heterochromatic eye, his own eyes filled with horror and fear.
Afterwards, Black Zetsu dared not linger any longer. His figure silently and swiftly slipped into the ground, disappearing without a trace.
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