["Come! Enter me! Become one with me!" Huang Quan screamed, his voice ecstatic as he held the horrifying cavity in his chest open.]
[Moryo did not hesitate. With a low, resonant hum that vibrated through the very stone of the chamber, the abyss of black chakra surged from behind the shattered door. It wasn't a gas or a liquid, but a torrent of pure malevolence that poured directly into Huang Quan's body.]
[The fusion was instantaneous and grotesque. Huang Quan's body shuddered violently, but his face was a mask of euphoric bliss. Once the last wisp of darkness had been absorbed, he calmly took a needle and thread and, with the practiced efficiency of a master surgeon, sutured the gash on his chest closed with one hand.]
*[He stood, took a deep breath, and a confident, chillingly serene smile spread across his face. "The ritual," he declared in a voice that was now a layered echo of his own and the demon's, "is complete."]
The barrage of comments resumed, a mix of morbid fascination and professional critique.
[That suture technique is flawless. How does he compare to Konoha's Tsunade?]
[Are you kidding? Lady Tsunade's medical ninjutsu is about healing and life. This... this is something else entirely. It's not medicine; it's self-mutilation.]
[They're right. That 'dark medical ninjutsu' wasn't created to heal. It was designed for one purpose: to turn a human body into a vessel for that demon.]
In her distant town, Tsunade stared at the screen, a grim look on her face. "The stitching is clean," she admitted to Shizune. "But this isn't my art. My ninjutsu saves lives. His perverts the very meaning of the word, twisting a body for power. No wonder he calls it 'dark'."
["HAAAAAHAHAHA!" On the screen, a mad laugh echoed from Huang Quan's throat. He threw his arms wide, and the demonic power within him erupted. "AWAKEN, MY ARMY!"]
[The ground of the cavern trembled. Dozens of small mounds of earth shattered, and from them rose legions of terracotta soldiers, their empty eyes glowing with the same violet chakra that now pulsed from Huang Quan. An army of puppets, silent and ready.]
["Our first target," Huang Quan announced, his voice booming with Moryo's power, "will be the shrine that seals Master Moryo's true body!"]
["Before that," Moryo's voice corrected from within, "there is another enemy we must eliminate." An image of a woman in white robes, wearing an ornate crown, flashed on screen. "Go and destroy the priestess of the Land of Demons. She alone possesses the power to seal me again."]
["Yes, Master,"] Huang Quan replied, his expressionless face a stark contrast to his earlier mania.
["Once I am fully resurrected,"] the voice thundered, not just in the cavern, but across the entire Elemental Nations via the sky screen, ["I will eradicate the five great nations and forge a new world order! A Millennium Kingdom!"]
The historical context suddenly clicked for veteran shinobi watching everywhere.
[Those puppets! That's the army that invaded the Land of Earth fourteen years ago!]
[I remember that! They appeared out of nowhere and vanished just as mysteriously. So it was the priestess of the Land of Demons who stopped them?]
[Damn it! During the Third Great War, we thought it was a new weapon from the Hidden Sand! This changes everything!]
[Looks like the sky screen is good for more than just predicting the future. It's also declassifying S-rank intelligence!]
[Hahaha! Another state secret, delivered right to my door for free!]
In the Hokage's meeting room, Sakura turned to their sensei. "Teacher Kakashi, you were in the last war. Do you know about this?"
All the young shinobi—Naruto, Sasuke, Lee, Neji, Tenten—looked at him expectantly. Kakashi exchanged a brief, serious glance with Might Guy before answering.
"I fought them," he said, his voice low. "The terracotta soldiers. But we never knew their origin. We knew nothing of a 'Moryo' or a priestess with the power to stop them. If the screen is accurate, then it was the Priestess of the Land of Demons who saved us all from a much larger invasion."
His answer satisfied their curiosity, and their attention returned to the screen, hungry for more clues about their own fates.
[With their new target set, the scene on the screen shifted. It showed a border encampment in the Land of Demons being overrun. The terracotta soldiers were a relentless, unstoppable tide. The garrison was annihilated, with only a single, wounded soldier managing to send a desperate warning.]
[The screen then showed a montage of the great nations receiving the news, with Konoha at the forefront. And in the middle of a bustling Leaf Village street, a familiar figure appeared.]
[An older Naruto, looking confident and purposeful, weaved through the panicking crowds. He paused just long enough to scoop up a small girl who had fallen, gently placing her on a high water tower out of the stampede's path.]
["Stay safe now, bye-bye," the future Naruto said with a kind smile, before vanishing back into the chaos, leaving the little girl staring after him.]
[A moment later, he reappeared, standing atop a wall overlooking the mobilization. He put his hands on his hips, a grin of pure determination on his face. "The situation is critical! Time for me to be the hero!"]
The live commentary was merciless.
[It's the kid who died at the beginning!]
[Yeah, some hero. We all saw how that turned out. A nice nap in a pine box!]
[Guess Konoha's shinobi are all talk.]
[WHO SAID THAT? I'll show you what a Konoha ninja can do! Tell me where you are!]
[Hahaha! Good at running your mouth, I'll give you that!]
**[You worthless piece of **!]
A series of asterisks automatically censored the last comment, but the insult landed. In the Hokage's office, Naruto shot to his feet, his face red with anger.
"I wouldn't die like that!" he shouted at the screen. "I don't care what some stupid future says! If it shows up, I'll smash it to pieces!"
Neji Hyuga let out a soft, disdainful "Tch." He opened his mouth to utter a cynical remark about fate being absolute, but the words caught in his throat. An image flashed in his mind—the one from the screen. His own older self, standing at Naruto's grave, his face not triumphant, but filled with sorrow.
He still believed in the inescapable power of destiny. But seeing that future... seeing himself mourn the boy he currently despised... for the first time in his life, a rebellious thought took root in Neji's mind.
Can a future that is known... be changed?
He said nothing, turning his gaze back to the sky screen with a new, troubled intensity.
(To be continued...)