Naruto caught them before they fell. "Hey. Hey! You don't get to do that, you idiot. You just figured out who you are!"
"What's the Zero Code, Shikamaru?"
Naruto pressed his palm to V-2's chest. A glowing spiral spread across their skin.
Sasuke grunted. "The village won't survive." Uzumaki Naruto -V.2- NZC
"What the hell...?"
Sakura elbowed them both. "The village will be fine. The takeout budget, though..."
In the final battle, V-2 took a blow meant for Naruto. A chakra blade through the chest. Naruto caught them before they fell
Shikamaru tapped the screen. An image appeared—a masked figure, lean and fast, with a tattered cloak and a single crimson eye glowing through a cracked ANBU mask. The symbol on their back wasn't a village insignia. It was a zero.
"Files lie. People change." Naruto leaned forward. "So what do you want , V-2? Not your programming. You. What do you want?"
"I am your second version. Your V-2 . And I've come to ask you a question: When you became Hokage, did you ever feel... incomplete?" You don't get to do that, you idiot
Zero almost smiled. "Troublesome."
V-2 smiled—Naruto's smile, but different. Gentler. "I was... made to be your shadow. But shadows only exist because of the light." They coughed, blue chakra flickering. "So... be the light, Naruto. Be the Hokage you dreamed of."
Shikamaru pulled up combat footage. V-2 moved like liquid shadow—no hand signs, no wasted motion. Their fighting style mirrored Naruto's own: shadow clones, taijutsu feints, even a crude version of the Rasengan. But there was something else.
A New Zero Code The war ended five years ago, but for Naruto Uzumaki, peace was never the finish line—it was a new kind of battlefield.
"The Zero Code was flawed. It assumed jinchuriki were weapons that needed counters. But you proved otherwise. You befriended Kurama. You ended the cycle of hatred. So I ask you, Naruto Uzumaki—" V-2 removed their mask.