.

After the fight with Orochimaru and Manda, an observation of the battlefield showed that Orochimaru had left without bringing Kabuto along, so they now had a higher-up of Oto to interrogate. Of course he had tried to run away and even kill himself with a suicide pill he hid in his teeth, but a shuriken to the chin and one of Tsunade's punches to the stomach discouraged any further resistance.

Currently they were walking back to Konoha as Tsunade had finally agreed to become the Godaime. Kabuto had multiple chakra suppression seals applied to his person, and Tsunade even went so far as to give him the same poison she had given Jiraiya the previous day.

Naruto was currently talking animatedly to Shizune, detailing the training he went through while stuck in the Dangai. Right now he was talking about the process of removing his mask. "And it hurt like a bitch too! I had to take it off piece by piece because when you become a Hollow you don't have an actual face under there. Its just attached to your skull." Shizune looked mortified, "Well why did you do it then? Why go through so much pain voluntarily?"

"Other than the fact that the Reio ordered me to do it himself? It gives you a tremendous boost in power, seals most of that power away in a Zanpakutou, and takes the edge off of the hunger for human souls. So there's actually several very good reasons to do it, even if it's painful as all hell." Naruto explained.

"Wait, did you just say 'hunger for human souls'?" asked Tsunade.

"Oh yeah, Hollows have to devour souls to stay alive, and the hunger can sometimes be unbearable. But I've never eaten a plain human soul, only Hollows on the diet for me." said Naruto warily. He didn't know how they were going to react, but judging from the angry frown on Tsunade's face, it wasn't going to be pretty.

"You cannibalize your own kind, even though you understand their nature better than anyone else alive!?" Tsunade was absolutely seething, how could this brat do something so monstrous?

Naruto got a hard look on his face, "Tsunade, you have no idea what it's like in Hueco Mundo. In there, the weak are meat, and the strong do eat. I don't expect you to understand, maybe if you die and become a Hollow, and evolve past the basic and Gillian stages, then you'll understand. I don't know why I became a Hollow when I'm sure there's people out there who have had way worse lives than me, but I feel i became this for a reason, or at least was meant to evolve and become strong now that I am a Hollow."

Tsunade now felt guilty for making assumptions, and opened her mouth to apologize, but was cut off by a raised hand by Naruto, "I'm sure you were judging Hollows based on humans, so there is no reason to apologize. For future reference, Hollows are evil, nothing else to it. They may not have been evil when they were human, but once you become a hollow, you will kill, rape, and take whatever you want. I wasn't a normal Hollow for very long, so I didn't have time to become a proper monster, but i still devour my own kind to survive, and that makes me no better than them."

He looked around before licking his lips, "Speaking of which, I haven't eaten since before the two years in the Dangai, so I'm going to go to Hueco Mundo and gorge on Gillians, so I'll meet you back at Konoha, I'll be in the Hokage's office by the week's end."

With that, he walked to the side and tore a Garganta in the air before stepping into it.

Sorry for the short chapter, but I'm not good at the transitions like that.