Uzumaki Naruto -v.2- — Nzc

His advisor sighed, blowing smoke into the night air. "You're not gonna like it."

"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.

"Then stop trying to replace me," Naruto said. "And start being you ." They fought side by side that night—not against each other, but against the remnants of the NZC program: autonomous drones, rogue ANBU, and a corrupted AI that saw both Naruto and V-2 as errors to delete. Uzumaki Naruto -V.2- NZC

"You're nothing like the files described."

"They built several someones. All but one were decommissioned after the war. But this last one... went rogue. Calls themselves ." His advisor sighed, blowing smoke into the night air

Shikamaru, watching from a distance, shook his head. "Now there are two of them."

"NZC is a rogue protocol," Shikamaru said. "Originally designed by the Allied Shinobi Forces' R&D division during the war. It was supposed to be a contingency: if the Nine-Tails or another Tailed Beast went berserk, NZC would deploy an Anti-Jinchuriki Asset —a shinobi modified with synthetic chakra coils, immune to genjutsu, and trained to seal or eliminate jinchuriki." But you proved otherwise

"Admitting it isn't weakness. Pretending you don't have it—that's weakness."