The Ones Who Know Everything

Orochimaru guides Sasuke, Suigetsu, and Jūgo to the ruined Uzumaki mask temple, where he heads straight for one specific mask, unsettling Suigetsu with how certain his choice seems. On the way toward the village, Sasuke breaks off to gaze down on Konoha from a high vantage, and Orochimaru remarks that a man is bound to do so at his own birthplace. Reaching the shattered Uchiha grounds, Sasuke opens the sealed path into the hidden chamber beneath the Naka Shrine and mourns its decay.

Putting on the mask summons the Shinigami, and Orochimaru narrates each move as he cuts open the death god's belly to spill out its captured spirits. The act returns his own severed hands to him but leaves a matching wound torn across his body. Following his direction, Jūgo channels natural energy to trigger the six monitoring spores Obito had Zetsu plant on Sasuke.

Four spores are sacrificed while the last two are pinned down, letting Orochimaru cast the Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation and pour his consciousness into one restrained Zetsu as Jūgo absorbs the other. Buried in dirt and ash, the shrieking clones fall silent and become the bodies of the four leaders who held the village's history: the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Hokage. Sasuke's comment that the village has changed a great deal deliberately mirrors Naruto's opposite reaction early in Part II, underscoring how far Sasuke himself has drifted. It runs as chapter 618 in volume 65.