As the investigation deepened, the more information Adult Sasuke touched upon, the deeper the furrow between his brows became, hardly ever relaxing.
Relying on his familiarity with the Village, he pieced together the outline of this parallel world from scrolls in the Konoha Archives, residual encrypted records of the Anbu, and even fragments of drunken chatter from retired old Ninja.
Every piece of information was like an oddly shaped puzzle piece, forced into the cognitive framework he had built based on his own world's experiences, making an unsettling creaking sound.
The first piece of distorted information was about Danzo Shimura.
In the history he knew, that man who always hid in the shadows, his arm wrapped in Sharingan, who carried out the will of "Root" to the point of paranoia, had eventually died at his hands, paying a partial price for the annihilation of the Uchiha.
However, in the intelligence threads of this world, Danzo defected after the Joint Chunin Exams.
The charge was instigating Orochimaru to collude with the Sand Ninja to launch the Konoha Crush Plan, intending to eliminate the Sandaime and become the Hokage himself.
This in itself was bizarre enough.
But what Sasuke found even more absurd was the second piece of related information: Orochimaru.
In his perception, that Orochimaru—obsessed with immortality and forbidden techniques, cold and cruel, a defector from Konoha who established the Otogakure Village and became the "teacher" he once followed—had a strangely shifted image in this world's official records and certain hidden rumors.
It was said here that many of Orochimaru's early appalling human experiments and developments of forbidden techniques were not entirely out of his personal mad thirst for knowledge, but were carried out under the instructions of the already defected Danzo.
Danzo instructing Orochimaru?
Would the Orochimaru of this period be willing to take orders?
This reversal of the causal chain gave Sasuke a strong sense of cognitive misalignment.
It was as if the history he was familiar with had been re-edited and dubbed here by a pair of invisible hands, presenting a completely different narrative logic.
And what he found hardest to understand, even feeling a nearly absurd shock, was the intelligence regarding Uzumaki Naruto.
The Naruto of this world was similar to what he knew in his childhood, but during the Joint Chunin Exams, he suddenly used Wood Release and the Flying Thunder God Technique, even destroying Konoha in an instant and rebuilding it with Wood Release.
Destroying Konoha was not impossible for Sasuke, who possessed the Rinnegan and the Perfect Susanoo.
However, Naruto could not only destroy it in an instant but also rebuild Konoha in the "instant" after the destruction.
Destruction and creation, in a Ninja's perception, are two completely different dimensions of power, and the latter is often a thousand times more difficult than the former.
Destruction is the release of energy and the collapse of structure; whereas reconstruction, especially "instant" reconstruction, involves the reversal of matter and the reorganization of structure.
This had completely exceeded his understanding of ordinary "Ninjutsu" or "Sage Jutsu."
Sasuke stood atop a wooden high tower, overlooking Konoha Village below bathed in sunlight, confusion flashing in his eyes.
A breeze brushed the black hair on his forehead, but it could not disperse the mist in his heart.
This world... is truly too strange.
Danzo's defection, the re-characterization of Orochimaru's actions, and the power described as nearly miraculous on Naruto... every piece of information was like a key, yet trying to open a door that didn't exist in his perception at all.
The chains of hatred, power systems, and character relationships he was familiar with were completely disrupted and reorganized here, forming a set of logically consistent yet incredibly unfamiliar rules.
This wasn't just a deviation in details, but a distortion of fundamental settings.
It was as if a larger, more elusive hand was plucking the strings of this world's fate from behind the scenes, playing a melody completely different from the one he knew.
He closed his eyes, his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan rapidly processing this contradictory information in his mind.
The confusion did not diminish, but the investigator's instinct gradually overrode the initial shock.
The stranger and more contradictory it was, the more it indicated that this world hid a key secret.
If he wanted to know why it was like this.
The investigation must go deeper.
He needed to find more core insiders, gain access to strictly guarded top-secret archives, and perhaps... even face this world's Uzumaki Naruto directly.
However, stopping Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki was his main purpose for coming here.
But did the Naruto of this world really need his protection?
After finishing a day's investigation, Boruto told Sasuke the only piece of information he had learned, which was that he had found the location of this world's Naruto's new home.
Sasuke had completely given up on his disciple's reconnaissance abilities.
However, his brow furrowed after hearing the location Boruto mentioned.
Naruto's home wasn't in its original location?
No wonder that place was so tidy when he went to look; it turned out Naruto had moved.
The master and disciple hit it off and decided to go check out Naruto's home at night.
That night.
What appeared before them was not the slightly larger ordinary residence they had expected, but a courtyard.
Yes, a real, large-scale courtyard with a distinct traditional Hefeng charm.
The courtyard walls were carefully built bamboo fences and natural stones; inside, the outlines of well-arranged landscape trees and paths could be seen. Under the moonlight, the roof lines of the main house were elegant and graceful, and its area far exceeded that of a typical residence.
Sasuke looked at the somewhat restless Boruto and asked, "Something on your mind?"
Boruto reined in his thoughts.
"I was thinking..."
He paused, his gaze falling back onto that courtyard under the moonlight.
"Dad used to... live in such a big house by himself?"
Although his own home was a Duplex, it couldn't compare to the large courtyard in front of him at all.
Sasuke shook his head.
"According to the intelligence I gathered, this is a house he built using Wood Release; he used to live in a small apartment."
"Wood Release?"
Boruto, who had just been secretly happy about his own cleverness, suddenly turned his head, his azure eyes widening in the moonlight, filled with shock.
"Dad... can use Wood Release too?"
Wasn't that the signature Bloodline Limit of the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju?
That legendary Wood Release that could instantly create forests and pacify a chaotic world?
This was too big a gap from the image of his father, who he remembered was only good at Rasengan and Shadow Clones!
Sasuke shook his head slightly, his black hair swaying gently with the movement.
"I'm not sure. At least in our world, I haven't seen your father use Wood Release."
"Let's go, let's head in and take a look."
Both of them leaped onto the roof at the same time.
Just after leaping onto the roof, Sasuke's expression changed instantly.
"Not good, there's a Sensory Barrier, and besides the Sensory Barrier, there's also an Anti-Sensory Barrier."
A golden light flashed.
A blond youth appeared behind the two of them.
"You two, guests are welcome. Why don't you follow me down and have a seat?"
Sasuke lowered his head, thinking to himself that it was bad.
His perception had been fooled by the Anti-Sensory Barrier; he hadn't expected the Naruto of this world to be so cautious as to set up barriers in his own home.
Naruto looked at the two of them carefully, his eyelid twitching.
Did his future self really go and stir things up? He actually let them through!
"You're Uchiha Sasuke, aren't you!"