Chapter zero
Silence.
Perhaps little more than a light breeze kicking up dust.
The awakened Hyuuga places a gentle hand on the brow of the destroyer. She moves her fingers ever so slightly to caress his scars, ending around where his right eye used to be. The blood had long since been washed away. A patch has yet to be crafted though the eyelid remains intact. A sigh escapes her lips, expressing both the joy and despair she experiences simultaneously at having Naruto sleep with his head in her lap.
Without activating her byakugan, a quick glance reveals the numerous corpses strung up by the great tree. The moon continues to glow red with its eye pattern swirling slowly. Several hours had passed since the world ended, and nothing changed.
Another sigh - this one completely filled with despair. The war was over. They won; but the world lost.
Hanabi shifts slightly and removes her hand as Naruto's eyelids flutter open. The right eye socket only briefly exposes before squinting shut again. His left eye, crimson and slitted, remains so as a reminder of the deeper connection to the fox.
Sure, he knows the fox has a name - Kurama - but to him, the beast that killed his parents will forever only be 'the fox', or 'demon'. Naruto can't find it in himself to forgive the past transgresses of those who still live. Including his own.
He wearily sits up and turns towards the Hyuuga,
"Hanabi..."
Spoken softly with as much warmth as he can muster in his expression amongst the numerous scars.
Hanabi smiles sweetly in turn. The years of Hyuuga training to control one's expression and demeanor no longer matters, and so Naruto has no problem seeing the affection in her gaze.
The moment passes and Naruto's expression grows grim. He moves to his feet and dusts his hands off the sides of his pant legs. He offers his hand to assist Hanabi to her feet, and she accepts. Another moment passes silently between them as they allow the gravity of the situation to sink in.
"Naruto..."
Escapes Hanabi's lips before Naruto quickly embraces her, a blush rushing to her cheeks.
"Not another word..."
He says. A memory passes of him staring pleadingly at Zabuza for humanity, the same words being spoken. The same tears streaming down his face. The same pain of loss, although Naruto only lost almost everything. Similar years of giving into hatred, but fighting for something greater than one's self.
Hanabi Hyuuga returns the embrace in her typical gentle fashion of handling Naruto. Beneath the simplicity of this act, she can feel the tremendous pain and anger boiling inside him. She wishes desperately to quell the tide, but knows she is not the gentle soul her sister was. Though by no means does she see herself as a replacement. The bond between the Hyuuga and the Uzumaki runs deep because of all they'd endured together over the years. Knowing Naruto better than anyone else, she knows what is to come.
Naruto releases Hanabi and steps back. His jaw clenches with his lips parting slightly to reveal his canines enlarged. He wipes the tears from his face, but keeps the pain.
"I'm sorry, Hanabi. This is all I have left in me."
His words refer to the hate that wraps him like a cloak; the red chakra of the fox rising up, bubbling and boiling as a literal manifestation of his rage. His fists tighten, claw-like fingernails piercing his palms. The blood flows from his wounds and swirls into the chakra. One, two, three tails form in succession. The fourth forms at the same rate as his blood fills his chakra cloak. The ground beneath Naruto trembles, wind and sand flying upwards and away from his blood-soaked form.
Hanabi remains silent though her eyes turn down in sadness. She knows what is to come. And she cannot stop it. But she can help him. She speaks next, the truth, but knowing bitterly that it will only fuel the fire to explode,
"Naruto, I love you..."
Words that he needs to hear. Not because they are meant to calm him, but because they serve as a reminder of his pain. The same words spoken by another. As her death plays in his mind, the fifth and sixth tails shoot out from behind him, his blood cloak turning black. Before the form of the fox constructs itself over his form, the seventh, eighth, and ninth tails burst out as well. A sort of equilibrium converges on Naruto between himself and the demon. This is the union, the understanding they have reached, to share eachother's pain and hatred, to rage at the world rather than confine their emotions behind a mask of empathetic acceptance.
Hanabi stares at Naruto's current form, seen only once before and on this very day, and she begins to weep quietly.
Naruto, whole but amorphous in his shroud of red and black chakra, turns about in a blur and rushes headlong at the trunk of the massive tree, leaving a trail of corpses behind him. A destroyer can only destroy.