Naruto: The Prophetic Shinobi

The morning after the memorial, Konoha awoke beneath a thick mist. It hung low across rooftops and alleys, muffling the sounds of daily life. But inside the Senju compound, Naruto Uzumaki was already awake—sparring with his shadow clones as if the night before had never happened.

He didn't speak.

He just moved.

His blade sliced through the fog, each stroke a little sharper than the last. Every block and counter felt less like combat practice and more like ritual — a conversation between him and the ghosts of the fallen.

Hayate-sensei…

Naruto's clones surrounded him again. This time, he didn't wait for them to attack. His dojutsu , eyes sharpened as faint silver lines traced the edges of movement. Intent sparked like a flare before each attack, and Naruto read them like a book.

He turned. Struck. Parried. Sidestepped. One clone went down with a poof.

Then another.

Then the last.

Sweat dripped from his brow, but he didn't stop.

Not yet.

Not until the edge of his grief dulled into focus.

Only when the sun finally broke through the clouds did he lower his blade. He stood in the quiet yard, breathing hard, his hand still tight around the hilt.

He needed answers.

And there was only one place to begin.

By mid-morning, Naruto found himself in the Konoha Archives — not the public section, but a backroom reserved for cleared Chūnin and above. Scrolls lined the walls, thick with years of bureaucratic dust, but Naruto's eyes scanned for one thing: Fire Daimyō escort detail, Route Northern 12-C.

He found it.

Mission: A-rank diplomatic protection detail.

Shinobi Assigned: Gekko Hayate (Jonin), 3 Fire Daimyo personal guards.

Route: Northern border—Land of Rice checkpoint.

Date: Six days ago.

Status: All KIA.

Naruto frowned. The briefing was barebones, but the report held something strange — an attached amendment filed by ANBU two days ago.

He opened it.

Preliminary Field Analysis:

1. Enemy formation displayed ANBU-level tactics.

2. Recovered shuriken contain trace poisons used in Kusagakure black-market exchanges.

3. No identification of enemy forces.

4. Recommendation: Mission Trail Obscured. High-level concealment suspected.

His fingers gripped the edge of the table until the wood creaked.

He didn't have proof. Not yet. But this wasn't coincidence.

By noon, Naruto stood once again in front of the Hokage's office. He had marched there straight from the archives.

"Tsunade-sama," he said the moment he entered. "I need permission to inspect the ambush site."

Tsunade looked up from her paperwork. Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't scold him for barging in.

"Already went digging, huh?" she muttered.

Naruto nodded.

Tsunade leaned back, arms crossed.

Silence stretched between them for a long moment. Then she let out a sigh.

"You're heading out again far earlier than I'd planned."

"I don't care," Naruto said quietly. "I need to see it. Not for vengeance—for truth."

She nodded slowly and slid a scroll toward him. "Take this. It's a temporary mission warrant. No team. No backup. This is off the books."

Naruto took the scroll with a solemn nod.

The northern borderlands of Hi no Kuni stretched quiet and still beneath the pale morning sky. The dense woods had once seen the passage of armies — now they bore only the echoes of silent footsteps and fading violence.

Naruto Uzumaki stepped off the trail where the map had marked the last known coordinates.

This was the site.

The ambush that claimed Hayate Gekko's life — along with the elite guards of the Fire Daimyo.

Naruto let his breath settle.

He didn't call for clones.

Instead, he walked the field like a tracker.

The signs were faint — more than a week had passed — but a shinobi trained in movement and instinct didn't need chakra to tell a story. The brush had been cut at unnatural angles. Some tree trunks bore faint scarring: not burn marks from katon, but clean vertical slashes. Swords.

Naruto crouched by a cluster of dried soil disturbed in a fan-like pattern.

An explosion tag. A concussive one, from the outward spray. Probably a defensive fallback.

He moved deeper into the clearing. Small metal fragments half-buried under roots caught his eye — not standard kunai or shuriken, but embedded shrapnel from custom-made weapons. They bore no village insignia.

He plucked one shard, turning it between gloved fingers.

Unmarked.

Professional.

He found no corpses, no bloodstains, no broken weapons left behind. Which meant one thing.

The attackers cleaned up after themselves.

This was not a group of rogue missing-nin or desperate bandits. Whoever did this had ANBU-level discipline.

Naruto's expression darkened.

At the center of the kill zone, he spotted something strange — a long tear in the earth, as if something heavy had struck the ground, dragging across it.

He followed it… until he found a scrap of cloth caught on the base of a jagged root.

Black.

Coarse.

He turned it over.

It was stitched with a faint, faded thread: a branching pattern — not a symbol exactly, but close.

Naruto's eyes narrowed.

He sealed it in a scroll, along with the metal shard, and stood. His breath was quiet, his heartbeat slow. But inside, a pressure was building.

He took one last glance at the field before vanishing into the trees.

Next day, Naruto stood in the Hokage Tower.

Not in the public meeting room. Tsunade had arranged this in the war planning chamber — a room with no windows, no casual observers, and walls reinforced with silence seals.

Naruto placed the scroll on the desk.

She unsealed it with a wave of chakra.

The cloth and shrapnel spilled out.

Tsunade stared down at them for a long moment.

Her hand clenched slightly. "Where did you find this?"

"In the impact crater," Naruto said. "Drag marks led to it. Someone tried to clean everything — but not well enough."

He tapped the cloth. "That stitch. I've seen it before. Not in any known clan or village."

Tsunade didn't speak.

He added, "But I saw it in the archives. ANBU requisition files. The pre-dissolution gear of ROOT."

Tsunade picked up the scrap slowly.

"Danzo swore they were dismantled. Swore it to Hiruzen."

Naruto didn't flinch. "Danzo doesn't lie. He calculates."

The room fell into tense silence.

After a while, Tsunade spoke again.

"What are you asking for?"

"Let me investigate," Naruto replied. "Discreetly. If Danzo is running missions through unapproved channels, then it's more than betrayal. It's war under Konoha's name."

Tsunade met his gaze. There was no hesitation in him. No outrage, no self-righteous fire. Just purpose.

"You'll be stepping into deep water," she warned. "ROOT was buried for a reason."

"I'm not trying to expose Konoha," he said. "I'm trying to protect it from what's festering beneath."

Tsunade closed her eyes, then nodded once.

"I'll classify your report. The Council won't hear a word of this. You'll work off-record — only Shizune and I will be aware."

She added, almost as an afterthought, "And no brash moves. If Danzo gets wind you're watching him, he'll shut everything down."

Naruto gave a curt nod.

"I'll move through the shadows then."

He turned to go — but paused at the door.

"Hayate-sensei didn't deserve to vanish. Not like this."

Tsunade looked over her shoulder.

"No. He didn't."