Naruto: I'm in Konoha, my name is Uzumaki Menma

Chapter 554 Naruto's Dark Side

Naruto felt his eyelids getting very heavy and gradually lost consciousness.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself neither in the laboratory nor in the sealed space where the Nine-Tails was imprisoned.

Instead, it was in complete darkness.

He looked around; there was no sky, no ground, but he could see a field of vision about ten meters in front of him.

"Strange, where am I?" Naruto scratched his head and muttered to himself, "Shouldn't I be lying on the operating table undergoing gene modification surgery?"

Naruto looked down and saw that the blue surgical gown he had just changed into his everyday orange tracksuit had been replaced.

Naruto was confused.

Suddenly, the surrounding scenery changed.

Naruto suddenly found himself in a village.

"Where am I? —" Naruto looked around; it was all too familiar.

He looked up and saw the Hokage Rock in the distance, and the Hokage Building below it.

"This is... Miyo?" Naruto's forehead was covered in cold sweat.

But the villagers on the surrounding streets seemed not to see him at all, and walked right past him.

"Um—" Naruto tried to stop a villager to ask what was going on, but found that the villager had passed right through his body.

Naruto felt a chill run down his spine.

Tap tap tap—

Naruto heard footsteps behind him and turned around.

But then I saw a familiar figure walking alone on the road.

The surrounding villagers avoided him as if he were a rat crossing the street, and then began to whisper among themselves.

"Why is this guy still in the village?!"

"That's right, the fox spirit who killed the Fourth Hokage—why did the Third Hokage allow him to live in the village?"

"Damn it! If it weren't for Lord Sandai's orders, I would have loved to avenge my family!"

Naruto stared blankly at this incredibly familiar scene.

The lonely figure gradually approached, and Naruto saw clearly what the other person looked like—exactly the same as himself!

They were even wearing the same orange tracksuits and had six whiskers on their faces. The difference was that Naruto wasn't wearing a headband, while the figure opposite him was wearing a Konoha headband.

"That's...me?" Naruto stared blankly at the boy, who walked towards him alone amidst the gossip of the surrounding villagers.

He felt a chill run through his body.

Although villagers had said similar things about him when he was in Konoha, Naruto deliberately avoided them because of Menma. Even when buying daily necessities, he would go to Menma's department store. In addition, he gradually got to know friends like Hinata, Sasuke, Iruka, and Tetsuya who did not discriminate against him, so Naruto was not affected by the malice too much.

But in this strange spiritual world, Naruto saw another version of himself. Under the villagers' malice, a black aura gradually gathered behind him, forming a fox with nine tails behind the boy.

Suddenly, the boy raised his head and looked at Naruto.

Naruto was stunned. Those were crimson eyes, and Naruto saw hatred and savagery within them.

A series of negative emotions such as malice.

Then, the boy took out a kunai and casually threw it, instantly killing a villager.

The sudden killing plunged the entire street into chaos, and the villagers who had been gossiping about the boy scattered in terror.

But the boy turned into a killing machine, slaughtering the villagers.

One by one, villagers fell into pools of blood, staining the entire street red.

"Stop!" Naruto finally snapped out of his daze, roared loudly, and rushed forward at the same time.

Naruto raised his hand and threw a punch at the boy who was about to kill the old woman villager, but the boy blocked it with his hand and then kicked him in the stomach, sending Naruto flying several meters.

"Ugh!" Naruto clutched his stomach, feeling a churning sensation in his abdomen, as if he was about to throw up his dinner from the night before.

When he looked up again, the boy had already killed the old woman villager. He held the old woman's head in one hand and a bloodstained kunai in the other. He slowly turned his head to look at Naruto.

Then he gave a wicked smile.

"You bastard! Who are you?! Why are you killing these innocent villagers?!" Naruto roared angrily.

The boy opposite gave a wicked smile and tossed the village woman's head to the ground.

The head, stained with blood and filled with terror, rolled several times on the ground before staring unblinkingly at Naruto, sending shivers down Naruto's spine.

The boy spread out his blood-stained hands, chuckled, and said, "Isn't it obvious? I am you, I am Naruto Uzumaki!"

"Impossible!" Naruto shook his head, gritting his teeth, "Although I also hate those villagers for their harsh words to me, I never thought of killing them!"

""

The boy opposite slowly walked out of the pool of blood, and the street and sky behind him turned blood red.

"Don't deny it, I am your dark side, all your negative emotions, your hatred for those Konoha scoundrels, it's all here with me!" Dark Naruto shouted, raising his hand and slapping his chest hard.

Naruto stared at the self opposite him, who called himself the Dark Side, panting heavily, with beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

"No—I never thought about those things—" Naruto shook his head, looking very distressed.

He shouted, "Although everyone in Konoha is hostile towards me, I never intended to kill them; I just wanted their approval!"

"Don't be naive." Dark Naruto kicked the head off the ground, angrily rebuking Naruto's naive idea.

"Think about it carefully. From the time we can remember, how did the villagers who cared for us feed us expired milk? How did they mistreat us? Why did we, at only three or four years old, have to move out and live on our own?!"

"Think about those villagers again. From childhood to adulthood, how many of those unruly people in Konoha have ever given us a kind look? They all wish they could kill us. If it weren't for the Third Hokage still being alive, those villagers might actually have dared to secretly poison us or something!"

"What you call acceptance is nothing more than Stockholm Syndrome—a desire to fit in after being bullied for so long!"

"If you ask me, we should kill all those Konoha scoundrels! Let's see if they still dare to spout nonsense about the demon fox and tell us to get out of Konoha!"

"Do you know why Kurama hasn't fully accepted you yet, or lent you its full power as a tailed beast?"

"It's all because of your weakness, your incompetence, your twisted mentality of trying to fit in and gain their approval even when you're being bullied—that's not what Kurama wants at all!"

As Dark Naruto spoke, the fox-like figure formed by the crimson aura behind him became more and more distinct, even extending into nine tails.

"I! I am the most suitable Jinchūriki for the Nine-Tails!" Dark Naruto became increasingly frantic, walking towards Naruto and shouting wildly, "Give me your body!"