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Naruto Uzumaki
As one, the world began to tilt and fall on its axis. It had seemed so still and perfect before, and now it was crashing around him. The prized hat that he sought for all those years slipped from his fingertips and went floating away, towards the Hokage Monument.
Everything was stone and fire. He saw Granny Tsunade and Hinata grabbing the children and elders, taking them away from the upset of death. Already, bodies littered the once polished ground. The stone now shined with polish and blood.
And he had seen who had done it.
He caught himself and picked himself up immediately, but again he stumbled. My right ear's been shot by the explosion, I can't hear... everything's so dizzy...
The world was not flat, it was tilted right. How could all those people still be standing?
Things were calming. The orange had faded, leaving thick smoke and loose rubble. And bodies, so many bodies. He looked at one and saw that the woman was still alive, but it was only in her eyes. The shockwave had struck her back, in the spine and she was now paralyzed. Her eyes told unspoken pain.
Pain... It was to much like the unexpectedness of Nagato's attack all those years ago. The Six Pains, attacking the village. The colossal battle of the Sage Mode protege versus the Third Sage of Six Paths.
But this time there was no Pain to attack, no Akatsuki to blame. The Pains and Madaras of the world had been crushed in the years of peace after the War. Things had settled down... hadn't they?
A second explosion went off, followed quickly by a third, fourth, fifth, all consecutive and rapid. The entire platform erupted, throwing him off balance and then into the air. The few attendees who had not yet cleared off were also tossed into the air like puppets cut from their strings. Helpless, frail, they fell down to the ground as the thousands in the crowd turned their cheers into screams.
I'm Hokage, I need to be protecting these people. Come on, Naruto, get up, get moving. This is what we've been waiting for, to protect Konoha as Hokage!
He sprang into action just before he hit the broken surface of the ground. He dashed forward, catching the paralyzed woman. Dodging falling stoned and catching another unconscious body along the way, he ran off to the side where Kakashi and the rest had gathered into safety. He dropped the two off, looked to rescue more-
A sixth explosion, larger than the rest, enveloped the entire platform. He covered his eyes in shock as all the bodies left there vaporized, and the railing, which had been loosened from the initial blasts, went free falling out into the crowd and lights.
Even that sense of security had been broken.
"Naruto!"
"Hinata..."
She came up and hugged him quickly, parted just as fast. "What's going on? Who's doing this?"
He clutched her shoulders but his face turned towards the figure he had seen on the opposite side of the village. The one who had been staring right at him, creating an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. But now he was gone, swallowed up by the darkness.
He relaxed himself, released himself from his wife. "Get everyone off the platform, instruct Shikamaru to start moving the crowd out of the village," he said smoothly. "Then have our sensory ninja start looking for rogue chakra signatures. This isn't another nation, it's a terrorist group."
Her eyes widened in alarm as he closed his own eyes, trying his best to remain in control so not to worry her. The orange markings spread out on his eyes, and when he opened them they were the sideways irises of the toad. He looked back at her and gave her a reassuring smile. "Just stay safe, this won't take long."
"That's right, it won't." The voice came right behind him, but as he whirled to slash into where the neck should have been, there was nothing there. The man- he was sure it was the same one- had jumped backwards, onto the desecrated platform. The faces of the previous Hokage all seemed to stare at him in anger.
And the face of the Seventh was no exception. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"
The other man had his back to him, his face looking up at the Hokages. He did not reply.
"Answer me, you bastard!" He dashed forward, the rock cracking from the speed of which he moved. But the man was suddenly gone again, this time standing at the edge of the platform, looking out over the crowd. Below, he could hear gasps of alarm and shock. Still, he could not get a look at his face.
"What do you want?"
The man lifted up his left hand. "I am going to tell you not what I want, but rather what you want to hear, and then we will see the difference." He extended his index finger and swirled it twice. Naruto blinked, and then two more people appeared right next to him. In an instant, they were turning and lunging for him. Their faces were set in fanatical determination, eyes steely. They wore jet black uniforms but with shining silver shoulder pads.
With Sage Mode, he could filter their movements and determine where they would strike. He swerved left out of range of a fast-approaching palm, and retaliated by slamming his own palm into his chest. That attacker went tumbling to the ground, gasping for breath. The other managed to avoid meeting the same fate, dipping down below the Seventh's hand. He brought his fist up and struck the elbow joint, lifting his arm away-
The Seventh whirled his leg around and slammed the man into the ground face first, removing him from the battle.
"You want to believe I hold no purpose other than violence and chaos, am I right?" The face had observed the fight calmly, watching every move he made.
But it was not a face at all, but rather a bone-white skeleton face. Somehow, it was attached to his face as if he were a skull. The eyes were hollow, the teeth bared. A death mask, one he had seen several times in a museum, but never had he seen it worn. They were the sort put on those who were deceased, to show they no longer belonged to the world but gone onto a spiritual, unworldly one.
The Skeleton did not seem disturbed in the slightest by his comrades defeats. Now the Seventh gazed back into those empty eyes. Below, the crowd of people watch the confrontation of the two shinobi silently.
"I want to know why you're here," the Hokage countered. "I'm not making any assumptions-"
"I heard you say you thought we were a terrorist group," the other interrupted smoothly. His lofty, overly confidently tone made him unsettled. "And what do all terrorists want to cause? Destruction. Death. To make their cause known. To deviate from the norm to accomplish their goals. Perhaps that is what I am doing now, but I am far from such barbarism."
He clenched his fists. "I don't need a lecture. Tell me why you're here, or I'll force the answer out of you!"
The death mask shook its head. "So this is the man who saved the world? You are unworthy to lead the new generation." The Seventh's eyes widened in surprise. His opponent's voice had suddenly grow cold, darker. The coolness was still there, but now these new emotions were laced in and detectable. The skull's face brought about a wild, barbaric side in the man, but the words were conformed and smooth. A dangerous mix of personality, there's something strange about him.
"So that's it?" Naruto ventured. "It's a personal vendetta against me and my initiation as Hokage?"
"You are certainly apart of the problem," the man agreed. "But it is a much larger change I plan to bring. You see, while we follow the same actions of the terrorists you are acquainted with, our goal is not to separate from the norm, but to create the new norm." The skull smiled, and Naruto froze. How can he make a mask do something like that? It's an inanimate object... or is that his real face? Is he really just a walking bag of bones?
He lost his concentration as he watched the corners of the mouth rise, and he felt Sage Mode leave him. What is he?
"...You still haven't told me what you want," he tried one last time, but his own confidence was uneasy. The very presence of the man in front of him was unsettling.
The smiling skull tilted its head as if looking at a small child. "True. But I find words are often just excuses made for action. And we've been talking for quite some time with all your admires wondering what on earth were saying." The left hand raised again, palm open. "So allow me to tell you all what I plan to do." The hand closed.
The faces of the six Hokage exploded all at once, the stone ripping away from its foundations and sending massive chunks into the now screaming crowd. Naruto watched in horror, and then his horror turned into rage. In an instant he was back in Sage Mode. He lunged forward, but the man was gone again, reappearing right next to his outstretched arm.
"You could hurt someone doing that," he commented, resting one hand on the arm and letting it carry him a little. Then he brought his other elbow down on it-
He allowed his own elbow to bend inward, causing the man to stoop forward a little. He lashed out with his left leg, intending to sweep the others legs out from beneath him. His speed ought to make it a maneuver no ordinary shinobi would be able to counter, unless-
The skeleton eyes looked dead into his own, and in the very dark pits of them, he saw a faint, icy blue, outlined in a murky brown-
The other caught his leg and grabbed his foot, swinging around while rubble rained about them. He released the Seventh and threw him out towards the middle of the platform. Naruto caught himself, but he was stunned. "Just what the hell are you?" he shouted amid the rain of destruction. Those strange brown outlines...
"I can tell by your face you saw it, yes?"
"Who are you, what are you-!"
"I am many things, Naruto Uzumaki. But what those things are can wait for a while. I simply want to show the world what I want right now." He walked past Naruto, up to the edge of the cliff so that he stood before the crowd. They began to boo him, and loose trash found their way up into the air to try and hit the death mask.
Clap. The man had put his palms together. Naruto scanned the crowd, eyes wide, wondering what sort of jutsu he was unveiling. More bombs? Or maybe he was just trying to garner their attention?
He stamped his left foot twice. "Hold him."
A fist struck him in the back of his head. Confused, he looked behind. Two people were there, both wearing death masks, though not as realistic as the Skeleton's. A tall, well-built man, probably the one who had struck him, and a blue-haired female that was disconcertingly familiar...
How did I not sense their approach in Sage Mode?
Suddenly, explosions. Still dimmed by the blow to the head, he watched as the buildings running along the street turned into orange balls of heat and fire, blown apart from the inside out. Below, the crowd of his supporters suddenly turned into a mob of fear and pain as the wreckage tumbled onto them, lighting many on fire and killing other outright.
The skeleton mask was turned back to face him again.
"You... bastard..." He tried to lunge again, and broke free of his two captors. His fist stretched out to land a strike on the mask he now hated so much-
The mask smiled with welcome, then struck him across the face. He landed on the cracked ground, groaning.
"They already call you Konoha's Orange Hokage," the man said quietly, just loud enough to be heard over the sounds of chaos. "And before you, there was the Yellow Flash. Both prodigious shinobi who became leaders. Both prodigious shinobi who watched as their village came under attack, and were unable to do anything to stop it. Tell me, Naruto Uzumaki, do you like the banners of your colors I have spread for your village?"
The orange flames were everywhere, alright.
"All because of you."
"Just what do you want, you sick, psychotic, detrimental-"
"Did I not say words can only go so far? But enough is enough. Time to go."
He blinked in surprise. "That's it? You blow everything up and then you just leave?"
"This is merely a demonstration. I will be back, Seventh, to finish my shinobi way revival. Perhaps then I will answer your questions."
In an instant they were all gone, leaving to who knew where. He blinked smoke out of his watering eyes. He tried to sense their presence, but they were all gone. There was not a single unusual chakra signature to be found in the village.
What... was that?
"Old man!"
"Boruto..."
The last thing he saw before he slipped into unconsciousness was his son's worried face and Hinata's watering eyes.
