Finale

By Esparia

Esparia: This chapter has been done for a while...I suppose the reason I wasn't getting any reviews was because I didn't post this...posting helps. Any way, about the story.

A post-apocalyptic Naruto fanfiction that'll update whenever I find time outside of my Spiral Series and is comparatively darker. Never thought I'd see something like this under "What Esparia has written", but I suppose it's overdue. I like night writing and this seemed like a good idea at the time. Not so sure though. If you want this thing to continue you'll have to tell me, otherwise I'm going to end up forgetting about it and take it down. This thing has actually been floating around my USB for a while now. It was...bad. Really really bad.

However, I saw where I was going with it. That being said, instead of chucking it out the door for being an abomination to society like I should have done, I decided to make something new out of it. I stripped it for what it was worth and with the base of the base I created a new fanfiction that can hardly be recognized as what it was. Things I'm keeping? The title (which I'm proud to say wasn't actually bad with the exception it was spelled wrong) and the concept that the Naruto world would be ravaged by a titanic chakra beast. Inspired by "Sky Runs Red" by firefly...though really isn't alike for obvious reasons if you ever read firefly's work.

Anyway, I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does. Ladies and gents, I present to you the long awaited "Finale".

Warning ('cause this needs one): Death. Tons of it. I mean there is going to be a crazy amount of dead people that are not being Kishimoto-Magiced back into the living world via Edo Tensei. Not happening. This isn't a zombie fiction. People are just gonna be dead. End of story. Other than that? Angsty feelings I suppose...*shrugs*

Chapter One

Zetsu was an old being, as old if not older then the biju. Zetsu was created by Otsutsuki Kaguya, whom he saw as a mother that needed to be revived. That was his plan after all, to revive his mother so she could finish her plans for this planet. His half-brothers Hagoromo and Hamura had sealed her away into the moon, which frustrated him. Zetsu knew his mother needed to finish her plans for this earth, but Zetsu hadn't been powerful enough to get her back. He had learned how, eventually, but it would be difficult and take years upon years of planning and careful cultivating. He had nearly succeed in bring her back. He was so close, but he made a mistake. A mistake that cost him dearly. Perhaps it was because he chose Madara, perhaps it was because his minor slip was caught by the genius Uchiha. Whether it was the slip up or the fact he chose Madara as the Uchiha he needed, either way he made a mistake as he was now finding out.

The revived Madara slammed Zetsu's back into the stone wall, a snarl etched across his face. One hand was pinning the plant's body to the cold surface, infused with his chakra to keep Zetsu from fazing into the wall. Madara's other hand held a kunai to the black and white forehead.

"I knew you would betray me. I knew you wanted to use me and my power. I knew," Madara growled into Zetsu's white ear. Pressing the kunai hard enough to graze the scull, he whispered, "that's why, Zetsu, you are going to die."

With a shove, Otsutsuki Zetsu's life ended. Changing the fate of their shared world and dooming the people would have lived in it.

"Urk!" Naruto coughed and trembled as he feel to the ground. Limbs aching and sight dancing with the black spots that meant inevitable unconsciousness. He was lying by Uchiha Obito, the man who had tried to save him.

Obito had gotten free of whatever hold Madara had over him after his fight with Kakashi. Obito, after a long debate with the other kage and persuasion from Naruto, was let into the Alliance. He would be give the information he had to them along with being a last resort in case Naruto was captured. It was a fear the army had valid worries for. Madara wanted the biju to power his Plan, Obito had mentioned the mechanics were changed after Zetsu was eliminated. Madara's "Moon Eye Plan" was changed, it didn't use the moon. Obito hadn't known what it was, Madara hadn't told him.

When Naruto was captured, Obito was unaware until Madara began extracting Kurama. Kurama fought off the first attempt and sent a mental message to the double agent. As much as the fox hated the Uchiha, especially the ones that controlled him, he could see that Obito was also manipulated and was willing to work with him. Obito arrived casually, as if he had no alliance with the others. He had approached Madara, asking if he was having trouble with extracting the kyuubi then attacked with the kumui. Naruto was still recovering from the attempted extraction and was trying to focus enough to overcome the paralysis seals. Sadly all Madara needed was a few moments to kill Obito and begin extracting Kurama again. With the seal weakened he easily broke it and drew the nine tailed fox into the statue.

Madara chuckled lowly, an unstable look in his eye, he exclaimed, "at last! My plan of which I have had for decades will come to fruition. Behold, young Uzumaki, as the world's strongest and last genjutsu is cast upon its people. Watch and be amazed at this final creation of Uchiha Madara, head of the most powerful clan on Earth!"

Naruto struggled to keep himself awake, grasping at the ground weakly as he tried to pull himself up. The insane man leaped above the statue and landed on a protruding balcony, likely made from a doton jutsu.

"N-Naruto..." Kurama's voiced echoed Naruto's mind, "don't watch...sleep."

'I have to save you, Kurama! We're partners! You still need to tell me about the good old days,' Naruto projected back. Even though they were separated, Kurama had established his connection with his jinchuriki. It wasn't a connection that wasn't so easily broken merely by his lack of physical presence.

Madara flashed through hand seals and slammed them into the wall behind him, softly uttering, "Tenmodo no jutsu." (Skylight technique)

'Tch, points for attempted creativity,' Naruto's muddled mind projected as he struggled to sit up, only to fall back down with a body wracking cough.

"Naruto, please stop," Kurama cut through his pained hacking, "I don't want...you to see this."

'Not gonna happen...fox,' Naruto replied, 'I promised that he wouldn't get you. I never-'

"I relieve this promise from you," Kurama interrupted, a note of panic in his voice as the great fox sensed his time running out.

Madara eyed the whole in the ceiling critically before flashing through more seal and slamming his hand back against the wall, "Kyoumen no jutsu." (Mirror Surface technique)

The walls of the cave they were in shimmered and plated in facets, creating mirror like surfaces. It reminded Naruto eerily of Haku's ice mirrors, with the sick twist of an insane Uchiha's eyes replacing the friendly Hyoton user. The mirrors were dark, almost black, like it was made of obsidian that sucked the light around it away.

Mirror like rocks grew around the open roof of the cave, with the difference being it had fractal protruding mirrors. It was impossible to see the real sky through the large skylight.

'I will save you, Kurama,' Naruto thought with determination, dragging his body up before he fell to the mirrored floor. The cave spun, black spots increasing in number, "I...I will s-save you...Ku-Kurama..."

Madara grinned up at the mirrors, "Yes. Yes, yes, yes! Watch, Hashirama, watch me bring world peace in this Grand Finale! Fuuin: Chakra Densen no jutsu!" (Seal: Chakra Electric Line technique)

The floors and walls lit up with strange designs crawling and zigzagging in what looked like a meaningless pattern.

'I can't move...but I have so save...' Naruto's thoughts slowed as his eyelids drooped.

"That's right Naruto, sleep," Kurama projected gently.

Madara flashed through seal after seal, eyes blood red and tomoe spinning quickly, focused on a single point in the large room.

'I have to...' Naruto thought weakly as he lost consciousness.

"Sharingan: Shuugenjutsu no jutsu," Madara exclaimed, hands flying to what would have been a silly looking position. One hand held skyward like he was holding a tray, the other turned outwards with his wrist to the back of his head.

Kurama could feel his energy being sucked away into a vacuum like hole, his brothers and sisters being pulled along with him. Tails of chakra being pulled by the second.

"Naruto...Gaki...s-sleep, sleep softly," Kurama said, cutting the connection and disappeared into the Uchiha's seal. Converting the energy into something the Uchiha could use to power his eyes to their fullest. Kurama, or what was left of the great fox, flared his remaining chakra to attack the madman. Madara grit his teeth through the pain of Kurama's final attempt and steadily continued his genjutsu. With that, Kurama vanished into nothing.

Kurama's attempt may have been in vain, it may not have succeeded in stopping the Uchiha. But it did do something. It caught Madara's attention. If only for the briefest moment Madara had twitched slightly off the point in the wall he was so keen on staring at.

The point looked no different then any other point in the mirror room, but it was the single spot that guaranteed his safety. It made sure that he was in complete control of the illusion. It made sure that Uchiha Madara would not be caught in his own web of synthetic reality.

Exactly twenty four hours after energy started casting itself into the strange dome above the cave, Uchiha Madara slumped before standing tall with a glazed look in his eye. A red band surrounded his irises, but they were not in any way an active sharingan. No, Uchiha Madara had doomed himself to the same fate as the ones cast in his genjutsu.

Stepping over what he thought were the two corpses of his last adversaries, Madara made his way out of the cave and into the open world.

"Did you see that, Hashirama? Did you see? I created world wide peace. There will never be war again. Never will a person die for the selfish reasons of another. No more fights. No more suffering. No more spilled blood, Hashirama! Don't you understand? No one will loose their loved ones ever again. Ha-ha, aha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Madara's laughter rang through the forest, the people with red circled irises payed no mind to Madara's laughter. They couldn't hear it, some to far away to logically be able to hear it anyway. The others too caught up in their own illusions, happy that the war was over and that Madara was defeated. The shinobi had won, after all.

When they first saw the red beam shoot up into the sky, many worried that it was Madara's doing. That whatever his plan was had come into being. When nothing happened, their surroundings stayed the same and nobody was dropping to the floor in a coma like state they had decided that maybe it wasn't Madara's plan. Then Naruto had come, returning to them with the declarations that Madara was dead, Obito grinning and saying that Naruto was the hero.

Yes the ninja were happy, never would they be so relieved to hear that a man was dead. They would be able to return to their families and their monotonous daily lives. Some planned on settling down, many declaring retirement the moment they walked into their village. At last, there would be peace.

The animals of the forest had watched the humans as they loudly made their way back to where ever they came from. They didn't think much of the strange glazed look they all had. As long as the humans didn't threaten them, they didn't care. Though a few got too close to a nest or the young, getting soundly bitten or pecked for such evil. Strangely enough, the humans didn't seem to notice their wounds. They moved out of the animal's way, but didn't really react. The animals didn't think much on this, outside of the fact that their tactics weren't working as fast as they would have wanted. Once the threat left, they thought no more on the subject of unresponsive humans.

Madara was ecstatic, his plan had worked wonderfully and he would finally be able to die in peace. His plan was fairly simple, in retrospect. Madara had planned on using the moon as his conductor after Zetsu suggested it, but upon realizing that Zetsu was a dirty turn coat he began seeing the flaws.

For one, a red moon could easily be avoided by not going out during the nighttime hours. He needed everyone under his control if he wanted to accomplish any world peace. If people fought him and tried breaking the people under his control it would do no good but make more war. No, the point of casting his genjutsu was so that everyone thought they had won and would be subtly influenced into thinking of working towards peace. Who would want to fight something that they weren't even aware of. So he needed everyone to be trapped. Whether they were underground, shielding their eyes, were blind, or simply napping so that they couldn't see his moon would make it hard to get everyone. So instead, he worked with the people's consciousness. If they were aware of their surroundings, like any waking person would be, they would be stuck under the genjutsu. It took some modification, but Madara learned how to project his sharingan powers into the surroundings like a regular genjutsu. He just had to pulse it and any person aware of their surroundings would instantly be caught in it, the only problem then remained to the fact some were sleeping and wouldn't be caught. Madara managed to figure out that if he instead used the energy from the biju like a battery that powered the genjutsu over a longer period of time, he could catch the people with off sleeping patterns. It would be better for him physically anyway, since channeling a burst of nine biju worth of chakra through his eyes wasn't the healthiest thing optically. Madara liked his eyes not being blind, thank you very much.

His plan had a few flaws in it, however. The people in comas. He'd probably have to either personally genjutsu them or kill them. He would think on that later. The next problem were the animals. He couldn't tune the pulses of the genjutsu to accommodate the consciousness of a human and an animal. Humans were his primary concern, so he would only be able to genjutsu them. He wasn't sure what he planned on doing with the animal problem, sure the genjutsu he established had animals but it wasn't like the animals were there. The farms would run out of meat products eventually. The thing with his genjutsu was that it was based on the individual's idea of a "perfect and happy ending". The people each experienced their own version of the genjutsu, since if they got to talking in large groups they could start thinking in dangerous ways. When people got together they could easily make more blood shed. They couldn't interact with each other until their thinking was perfected.

He planned on starting the people with their ideas of a happy ending. It would be what they hoped for. However Madara would be influencing them to want simple peace. They wouldn't want to be shinobi or kunoichi anymore. They wouldn't lust for power or money. They would all want the quiet life with simple things. It would become the new world wide culture. To see such things as desirable. The adults would remain under the genjutsu since they were the most corrupted. The children would learn this from their parents and the genjutsu's ideals, they would be under the power but still learn. However those children would slowly be pooled together to interact with one another on a real level. Real conversations with their peers but still under the influence of the genjutsu. Their children wouldn't be under the genjutsu, since peace would be well intact for the four to five older generations ahead of them. They would probably ask why there was a red ring around their parents' and grandparents' eyes and not their's, Madara planned on excusing this as a "side effect" of the destruction of Madara's evil plan for world domination. The people would never know it was the genjutsu itself. That generation of free born children will be closely monitored. If Madara had to force an extra generation of influenced people then that was fine. But if it proved successful, then he would let himself fade into the winds like he was long past due to.

He would go out like a true shinobi. Dying for what he believed in. Dying to protect his village or clan. Dying without the trumpets blaring in grand telling that he had passed on. He would die in the whisper of a forgotten man that had brought world peace, with no acknowledgment to his name. He would die a shinobi.

Naruto slowly came awake, vaguely aware of his surroundings. The silence of his mind making him aware of the lack of a presence in it. Not the soft huff of a sleeping fox.

'Kurama, what happened?' Naruto asked. His question echoing the halls of his mind.

Naruto's blue eyes snapped open in panic, searching around the mirrored room for any traces of the deranged Uchiha. Any sign that the biju were still alive and kicking.

It was quiet in the dark room, the only sound of his rustling clothes and his breathing. The stench of aging blood and rotting flesh brought his attention to the corpse beside him.

"Obito," Naruto said, mind still spinning to keep up with what was happening. His coils ached but he knew he would survive the extraction-

'Kurama?' Naruto thought in panic, reality hitting him harder than one of Tsunade's angry punches, 'Kurama? Are you there? Are you there? Kurama? Kurama! No, you have to be here. Kurama! Kurama!'

Naruto sat up in alarm, chakra feeling out for any residue of his fox biju's chakra. He couldn't feel anything around him that signified that the fox was out there.

'Kurama! You can't leave! W-we're partners!' Naruto projected, 'Partners, Kurama! Y-you're my friend. My friend! Friends don't leave each other, baka no kitsune! Come on Kurama, just respond! This isn't funny. I know you're there. I bet you're having a good laugh over this. Kurama! Stupid fox, respond, dang it! Kurama! Kurama!'

"Stupid fox!" Naruto yelled angrily into the dark space around him, "You're really ticking me off! I know you're there. This is just a stupid prank. You need to work on your humor, fox. 'Cause this is just lame. Just answer me already, you know you've been caught. Kurama. Kurama. Look I won't blow up on you if you just answer me, okay? So just answer already."

Silence answered Naruto's screaming, his heart beating harsh against his ears.

"Come on fox, what do you want from me? A drawn out speech declaring how great of a friend and partner you were, a declaration of how powerful I think you are? Not happening fox! I'll keep annoying you until you answer me," Naruto declared loudly, fists shaking by his sides, "Kurama, you dumb fox, stop with this ridiculous and uncreative prank. If you don't answer me right now, I swear I'm going to let Sasuke inside my head and genjutsu you with whatever his disturbed mind comes up with. Answer me Kurama! Kurama! Come on Kurama, answer me," Naruto's voice got quieter, "Kurama? Kurama? Kurama? Ku-Kurama?"

Naruto's hands clenched and unclenched, one hand traveling to his stomach above where the seal would have been.

"...Kurama?"

No one answered his call.

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