Refractions of a Destiny

By: Katany

Disclaimer: Characters borrowed and manipulated for fun, not profit.

Setting: This is set two and a half years into the 4th Ninja War as I extrapolated it from the manga up until Naruto heads to the Land of Lightning but before he completes his training. The details of the war and fate of the characters after that are AU as Masashi Kishimoto will work far faster than I. My war is slightly dark and will contain character deaths, but I figure I'm more following a precedent than changing the genre. No obvious spoilers though outside of vague things like Land of Lightning and training, which really aren't spoilers at all unless you consider the fact there is fighting, traveling, and training in Naruto as a spoiler.

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Destiny can't be changed, blah blah. Stop whining about stupid crap like that. Since... you're not a loser like me. -Naruto ch.104

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Sasuke's left knee broke through Naruto's defenses. Bracing himself for a low impact, Naruto was unprepared for the fluid change in Sasuke's attack. Naruto felt the opening he left a second before Sasuke's blow landed. Though he pushed backwards with Sasuke's punch, the force still sent him flying straight backwards through the line of trees. Arching his back and reaching above him, Naruto blindly grasped for something to control his plummet. He was able to dig his claws into the dirt and flip himself over but his momentum still drove him further despite the six meter long claw marks left in his wake. He only stopped when his feet hit a tree behind him causing it to crack as he crouched vertically against it. Two chakra tails flicked excitedly above him as he stared back at Sasuke.

With the angle of the sun, Naruto couldn't distinguish Sasuke's movements but noticed his opponent had returned to a defensive stance instead of continuing the attack. Typically, Naruto would've used the pause to yell at his opponents, trying to collect knowledge of their skills or plans or, in Sasuke's case, return him to his senses. He had learned early that verbal sparing was as important as the physical aspect of the fight. But neither man had spoken since Sasuke had dropped from the trees in front of Naruto's path and Naruto decided to let it remain that way.

The tree cracked again when Naruto used it as a springboard to cross on all fours back to Sasuke. Though he forced his opponent to retreat a step, each of his blows were blocked in succession until he noticed too late he'd been parried into leaving his left hip open. Three hits sent Naruto flying into the same tree. This time Naruto's impact was uncontrolled, knocking him through the first tree and into the second before he fell to the ground.

Returning to a crouch, Naruto surveyed his opponent. Sasuke had certainly increased his speed and strength for the last two attacks. The two had an unspoken agreement to see who could power up the least, each slowly forcing the other to match or surpass the current level set. After the first ten minutes of what remained mostly a taijutsu battle, Naruto had wondered if it was some sort of stall tactic. But the others weren't due back to the rendezvous point for nearly an hour and if they were in some sort of danger he was now wise enough not to run in circles searching for them. If Sasuke's lackeys were attacking his only option still was to trust in his companions. Besides, if he had to characterize Sasuke's behavior it'd be that the other man was having fun.

Naruto spit a mass of blood before increasing the flow of red chakra around himself. He had never known Sasuke to fight for fun before. Even training in his youth, Sasuke had fought with a singular purpose. For the last of the Uchiha clan, the battle had been about the most power instead of the current battle about doing the most damage with the least power.

As the third tail snapped into place with the other two, Naruto launched himself at Sasuke. Seconds before his first move, he noticed the other man's eyes had changed once more. He wasn't surprised when his attack was evenly matched instead of overpowering as it should've been.

Maneuvering through the trees in a familiar pattern, Naruto was momentarily struck with a sense of loss. It had been too long since he'd seen any reminders of home outside his traveling companions. Amid the endless landscapes he had traveled were brief contacts with the varied foreign customs, clothes, and languages on this side of the world. Even as he flipped over a leg sweep, Naruto couldn't help enjoy the contact with his home, even if it was part of the war which had driven him away.

Naruto reminded himself again he needed to focus on the end of the battle. He used emotions to drive his combat and nostalgia would be cumbersome. But the fight made him feel young and optimistic in a way he hadn't felt in years, Time rolled back and his friends hadn't betrayed him, his village hadn't be destroyed, and he hadn't been turned into a pawn in a war. He was simply a boy with a dream: to be loved and acknowledged by everyone who had dismissed him. Naruto missed the boy and the boy's dream. It was impossible to plan to finish the fight when he never again wanted to lose the boy he once was.

The two clashed momentarily matched before each pushing back to land on opposing tree branches to catch their breaths. Continuing on even with three tails, Naruto reasoned he could outlast the other man but the steady increase in power would be troublesome. Time away from the villages had left him bereft of the knowledge of Sasuke's current abilities which always seemed to increase exponentially. Already Naruto could feel the presence of Nine-Tails in his three-tailed form, a mere whisper of the control he once exerted against the beast. If the battle continued to escalate, Nine-Tails would gain more dominance in his mind.

Without warning, Sasuke leaped across the distance between the two of them, left leg extended, right hand behind his back. Naruto caught Sasuke's leg easily though he wasn't prepared for the blue glow of chakra moving from behind Sasuke's' back. Recognizing Sasuke had changed the rules, Naruto prepared to dodge and retaliate similarly.

But Naruto didn't dodge and the attack hit his stomach sending fire through his body. Sasuke's face began to fade around the edges as Naruto's eyes slowly closed. His last realization was that perhaps Sasuke had been playing with him in order to allow such a simple attack to succeed.

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White.

His eyes traveled down the long, muscled arm to the dorsal view of splayed fingers which held the white at bay. The index finger bent slowly at the knuckle, allowing each smooth movement of muscles, tendons, and bones to pull the skin taunt, upwards and to the left. The other fingers followed the index finger in turn, reshaping the pattern in his skin like shifting sands. The thumb moved last, tightening its grip around the fingers which curled around the white. With a sharp scrape of nails across skin, the fingers flicked out as if denying the white's advance.

For a moment, through the spaces of the fingers which might have been his own, the white divided and refracted. He could see everything beyond the colors perceived by the human eye, what was undetectable past the blues and reds, until the white converged again and the arm was gone.

Time passed or stood still; there were no changes with which to measure time.

"What was it like to die?" The words spilled over each other in exuberance for the seemingly morbid question. The noise jerked his senses, as if he still had a pulse to quicken or a body to jump. What might have been a resonating human instinct startled his eyes open, yet the white was still with him either way.

"White." The answer was smooth and low, but he knew the fear behind the word without knowing why.

"Eh?"

"Death is white and a vague sense of loss."

"Loss of what?"

"It is a sense of loss for what you do not know."

"Meaning you don't remember what forgot or you forgot what you can't remember?"

"Both. Neither." The second voice quieted. "The white consumes it anyway."

The first voice made a series of muttering sounds followed by hums of agreement. "Well white is all the colors of light. Light is energy. We're energy and since it can't be destroyed it must be converted. So there's no need to fear the white because it's us." The voice peaked in conclusion though there were a few more hums to fill the void signaling a hope for affirmation.

"Perhaps."

"What?" The voice cracked and grew shrill a second with panic. "That's all there is? Energy and light and amnesia? I can't believe that." A loud humph followed and the voice grew determined. "I won't accept that."

There was another pause. "No, even in death you would never lose your way."

The first voice chuckled with light embarrassment. "Hey, hey. Tell me this," the original energy returned. "What was it like to come back?"

He waited, needing to know the answer, but the voices echoed and grew silent. Desperate to follow them, he spun around and was blinded by the red and gold of the sunset. Bringing one short, pudgy arm to shield his eyes he blinked downwards. His shadow stretched from his legs behind him, twisting with the seven tails surrounding it, each tail growing longer as the sun moved lower. The tails converged behind him at the horizon, a place something in his head told him he should not be able to see, taking the form a body which he know would lead to the fox's head. He followed the line of the neck, to the ears, down the nose, to a small pair of feet.

He stopped, knowing instantly it was wrong.

The feet should have cast another shadow backwards, but instead it moved forwards into the fox's head.

And there had never been another child in his shadow.

"No." The hoarse cry sounded desperate to his own ears and he turned and ran towards the other child, cursing the body that he suddenly knew was too small and untrained. "No." The tears left salt trails down his lips, flooding the grass behind him as he ran. "Why is it always you?" He demanded the sun and the shadow on the grass to answer him through his mucus clogged throat. The question was familiar, as if part of the earlier echo. "Why?"

The sun and the shadow refused to answer, and the boy remained huddled at the end of the fox's nose, unmoved by his pleas and no closer than before.

"It's not fair." The declaration was childish and desperate as was the leap towards the other boy. His vision blurry from the tears, he startled when his chest hit something and there was a slight breath of air cooling the tears along his cheek.

They were falling. With a slight twist he moved his back towards the ground, to take the impact, but then they were falling down into the white instead of over into the grass.

Nothing moved as they fell; there was no whistle of air past his ear or wind burn against his skin. His tears trailed behind him, suspended and unaffected by gravity. He and the boy clutched to his chest accelerated continually as they fell, as if that gravity was only infinite against them. The solitary reason he knew he was falling was the distance between the beads of his tears, but they dried up when arms encircled his own waist and the red hair brushed his chin. The distance they fell after was immeasurable. He knew the child would be okay if he were to lose his grip but he only tightened it.

There was a small breath, then that smooth, unwavering voice. "Naruto."

Naruto hit the bottom.

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