Chapter 53

Revelations


Stunned silence reigned across the Himalaya as the Imperial officers saw two people staring at each other. One in shock and the other with tears in her eyes.

He stepped closer to her and placed a hand on her cheek which let more tears fall from her eyes...

Mikoto couldn't understand what was happening and Raval as well as the other Admirals had their hands placed on their guns to protect the Kaiser if danger arose.

As he touched her skin he felt the touch being familiar. The moisture on her fair skin, the light in her emerald eyes was something he had always admired but now could actually relate to.

"Sakura, who are you?" asked Naruto kindly,

"You still don't remember clearly, don't you?" she asked tearfully,

"I...don't...know...what...is...going...on...but...right...now...I...feel...like...I...have...known...you...since...a...long...long...time" admitted Naruto,

"Yes, we know each other. Just not in the way you think..." said Sakura gently,

"What the hell is going on here?" asked Mikoto angrily, her fingers itching to raise her gun at this mysterious woman.

Sakura understood the fear and tension among the people surrounding her. She looked at the Kaiser who was trying to piece everything together but was not getting much success. So, she made a decision fulfilling a promise made a very long time ago...

She tapped her omni tool a few times until an image appeared in front of them all.

Naruto felt his entire world break into millions of pieces as he saw the picture in front of him. A picture in which several humans both male and female dressed in royal robes were smiling.

He instantly recognized the familiar face of Prince Hayato, and the beautiful teenage face of Princess Ren who was holding in her arms a blonde haired, blue eyed little infant.

Liara instantly recognized the date on the image and it matched with the Last Era of the Prothean Empire. The people in this photo were all young children with Ren being the oldest. The scientist in her recognized the facial similarities in these children indicating they were all very closely related. Possibly blood siblings...

And when Sakura pointed her finger at the youngest of the group, the infant Liara saw the Kaiser's world getting destroyed to millions of tiny pieces.

"No!"

Mikoto tried to reach him as he took several steps back. Shock, disbelief, Anger, Pain, Betrayal, so many emotions were passing through his eyes and heart at lightning speed.

Before she or anyone else could do anything to help him, he ran.


It was a lie.

It had to be.

Yes, that was what it was. A ugly lie.

"Naru-chan, do you see those stars?"

He froze as a memory flashed before him. A memory in which he was surrounded by lots and lots of Protheans and several humans as well. Yet all he remembered was this striking raven haired beauty dressed in Imperial Uniform.

"Hayato has gone there, hasn't he?" he remembered asking her,

Tears had fallen from the young woman's eyes as she stared back at the teenage boy before her.

"Yes" she had answered with a heavy heart,

"I will defeat the Reapers and save you all. I promise, Ren...''

He remembered her hugging him fiercely whispering that she would never leave him alone. That no matter what happened he would always have her. That he'd always be loved by his big sister.

Another memory flashed and this time he found himself standing inside the Citadel Tower. All around him were hundreds of corpses. Protheans, Humans, Keepers, Reaper Abominations, Turned Protheans, and many other races he couldn't recognize. It was a bloodbath...

He was coughing blood and bleeding from multiple wounds on his body. His breathing was ragged as he pressed a few communication keys connecting him with his sister. Ren gasped on seeing the scene around him and the way he looked...

"I did it, Ren. I locked the Citadel, sealing the Reapers in dark space..." he had whispered,

"Naruto, you-" Ren had said in panic, but the now young man raised his hand.

"I'm gonna die, sister. So, listen to me carefully. I have moved the Mu Relay, the Reapers have gone back to dark space believing that the empire dies with me. Even so, you and the survivors go into stasis. The VI should wake you guys up when he deems it safe and also I managed to send a small group of my people to a planet called Terra in the Nova System. There is a species similar to the shinobi, they don't have chakra and they are simply animals now. Our people will rise up again..." explained Naruto, but the next moment he collapsed to his knees.

"NARUTO!"

He heard her screaming for him, begging him to stay with her, telling him that he was the only family she had left but his world was fading away. The Darkness was closing fast...

"I...love...you...Ren" he had whispered weakly,

His blood stained fingers reached for the key that would end the call. The darkness was getting nearer and nearer so he gave her one last weak salute offering his final shred of loyalty...

"Long...live...the...Empire"

He remembered Ren screaming for him one last time before he cut the feed and wiped all records. His final memory was of slumping against the Citadel Terminal and succumbing to the darkness but not before seeing a strand of familiar pink hair flash before his eyes.

Naruto froze.

The same woman now stood before him alongside his Akatsuki comrades, all of them staring at him in anticipation now that they had cornered him in the starboard side near the weapons section. He didn't even remember how he got here...

"Who am I?" he asked desperately,

Sakura approached towards him, Mikoto tried to stop her but was instead blocked by Raval. The medic came forward and laid a hand on his cheek and he instantly felt eerily relaxed and calm.

She could see his struggle, his agony as he tried to find himself in the midst of these revelations. He never resisted as she dragged him to one of the observation rooms uncaring of the fact that the others also followed the two of them.

Naruto saw the planet of Ilos approaching closer as the Himalaya went towards it and he couldn't help but feel something in his heart.

He remembered that flash he had a few weeks ago of finding himself dressed in royal robes in front of a large number of Protheans and humans. That woman Ren was also there and so was Sakura...

He told Sakura about that flash as a nostalgic smile arrived on her lips...

"That was the coronation ceremony. I'm surprised you remembered that on your own..." she said gently,

"Coronation?" asked Raval confusedly,

Sakura saw the people around them also needed answers and now that they had arrived to their destination, it was time to reveal them. She tapped her omni tool again and it shocked everyone in the room.

The very first thing that shook the Imperials were the exact same uniforms the Protheans and humans in the video were wearing. It was the same uniform their Kaiser had approved unknowingly for the current Empire's soldiers.

Liara also saw Sakura dressed in the same uniform among the crowd giving the old Prothean Salute to a person at the center of the room.

Mikoto's heart stopped when that person dressed in royal robes and a crown on his head turned out to be the same person that stood before her right now.

"Kaiser Naruto Alexander Rommel Uchiha, the last ruler of the Shinobi Empire..."

Naruto didn't want to believe the fact in front of him, it was mind boggling but the more he tried to deny it the more he knew deep down that it was true.

"This is..." said Garrus in shock,

"How is this possible?" asked Tali in disbelief,

Liara's eyes widened as she realized the truth. When she and Naruto had explored the Prothean Beacon, he had used that ancient technology easily as if he had always known how to use it. When Prince Hayato died in battle, Princess Ren had urged the remaining Empire to rally behind Prince Rommel.

These past few months she had been studying as much as she could into the last Era of the Prothean Empire and comparing their cultures with present day humanity that emerged from Earth.

There were two aspects that stood out. Two languages that being German and Japanese were primarily spoken across the Empire by all races. The cultures of those two and that language itself was currently practiced by humanity albeit with several modifications over the thousands of years.

Slowly, she could see where the missing dots were leading them to.

"The Protheans won the war?" asked Liara, and saw Sakura smile bitterly.

"When Prince Hayato died the Empire was on the verge of total defeat. But then Kaiser Naruto, his younger brother rose to throne. He and his sister Ren knew conventionally the Empire could not defeat the Reapers, so they discovered a way to seal the Reapers away in the dark space where they originally came from..." explained Sakura honestly,

"The Reapers came from dark space?" asked Raval in surprise,

"Yes. The Citadel is a trap created by the Reapers. We discovered that they used it every 50,000 years for their return to exterminate all advanced civilizations in the galaxy leaving the younger ones alone. And this cycle has happened dozens of time starting with the ancient First Galactic Empire..."

Liara and the others were stunned to discover this cycle had happened even before the Prothean Empire.

"Why are the Reapers so afraid of me? Of the Shinobi?" asked Naruto seriously,

"Because our races have been at war since the beginning. We are their rivals..." confessed Sakura,

"I don't understand..." said Naruto confusedly,

"The Prothean Empire wasn't our first rule over the galaxy. The Shinobi's history goes as far as the Reapers themselves, ancient manuscripts once stated that the Reapers were created in the first place to defeat our race. Unfortunately, while they weren't able to exterminate us they did defeat us with cunning, patience and sabotage. But our race never gave up, when our First Galactic Empire was destroyed we went into hiding for thousands of years. On discovering the Reapers had retreated we emerged again to form another Empire, but the machines decided to repeat the cycle of destruction..."

Rapt silence prevailed in the room as everyone listened to the unknown galactic history and also fascinatingly observed the few pictures Sakura had with herself.

"We were defeated again and went into hiding. The Reapers tried to exterminate us but we survived and emerged again to this time to form the largest Democracy in the galaxy. Cycles passed like this and everytime we rose from the ashes, commanded the new races of the galaxy to unite under our leadership and with each cycle we learned more and more about the Reapers, their tactics, their weaknesses. But our enemy also continued to advance and improve with every cycle and the shinobi race continued to dwindle over the cycles. It reached a point where the Reapers chose to kill every shinobi while ignoring their own cycle..."

"Democracy, Dictatorship, Communism, Socialism, and so much more. Our race tried it all and despite repeated defeats over billions of years we continued to fight. We never gave up because we knew that if we were gone then the Reapers would always carry out their abomination called The Cycle..." explained Sakura bitterly,

"How could you not defeat the Reapers with all the knowledge you had?" asked Tali curiously,

"Our race is powerful but in the end we are still people. In each cycle, there were factions among us who refused to believe the Reapers actually existed. Sometimes our entire race itself ignored the warning of our ancestors and forgot about those machines, only to face death when they returned. Sometimes our information about the past cycles was destroyed or lost leaving us to start from scratch. Every cycle we faced new problems which led to our defeat and we didn't have a truly exceptional leader until you were born..." said Sakura frankly,

"Me?" asked Naruto skeptically,

"You have to understand the Uchiha clan have always been the leaders of the shinobi. Every cycle it is your clansmen who unite the galaxy either through force, politics, conquest or allure. Your Sharingan makes you exceptional not just in combat but in real life as well. You were our unique weapons against Reaper mind control, it was why every Kaiser in the past was an Uchiha. They were all powerful warriors, but you were different..."

Naruto grasped his forehead, he didn't know whether to rebuff this far fetched tale or accept the truth for what it was.

"Even in this cycle, even without knowing any of this you conquered nearly half of the entire galaxy either directly or through Alliances. It proves my point as to why the Uchiha's were the chosen leaders in every cycle, in the Prothean Era we were again on the verge of defeat until you became the Kaiser..." confessed Sakura,

"Wait, the Prothean cycle ended more than 50,000 years ago. How can Naruto be alive for so long?" asked Liara pointedly,

"You're right. Kaiser Naruto Uchiha, the last Shinobi Emperor died in the Final Battle of Citadel 50,000 years ago..."

Mikoto saw the impact of this revelation on him, she knew there were times when he displayed intellect years beyond his young age. And somehow she had a feeling the pink haired woman in front of her was responsible for that.

"That man died sealing the Reapers into dark space protecting the survivors of the Empire and sending his few supporters on Earth to settle alongside the growing humanity that lived in caves..."

"How do you know that?" asked Tali in shock,

"He's remembering the past slowly..." granted Sakura,

"Just tell me...who am I? This tale is interesting and might be true but where do I Naruto Namikaze fit into it?" asked Naruto bitterly, earning a sympathetic nod from Sakura.

"When Kaiser Naruto sealed the Reapers and died I thought the war was over. Ren and the Protheans went into stasis just to be safe and since you moved the Mu Relay I or the others couldn't find them. It protected them from the Reapers but also hid them from us. Most of my friends went to settle on Earth alongside the humans living in caves, they gave up all technology and blended in the tribal culture to remain safe from any stragglers the Reapers might have left behind..."

"But a few of us were paranoid and stayed back to make sure there were no Reapers left behind to either harm our people and the next cycle. And that's when we discovered the small force of Reapers still in hibernation. We felt defeated, our entire army and fleets were destroyed in sealing the main Reaper Fleet into dark space. We had no resources or manpower left to take them out, and if we tried then the Reapers would have searched every planet for any shinobi and would not have hesitated in destroying humanity on Earth for even the slightest suspicion of being related..."

"So, I and my team went into stasis on Mars determined to rise a few thousand years later to prepare the galaxy. There was an accident and the Prothean Archives on Mars lost its power source. The VI tried to converge as much information and the lives of my team but eventually it was forced to make tough choices. My team was sacrificed just so I could survive until Admiral Namikaze found me..." explained Sakura in detail,

Mikoto instantly rounded on the woman and grabbed her by the collar. Being a scientist on the Archives, Mikoto was aware of the entire project and no where did she see Sakura or heard even a whisper about her.

"You're lying..." accused Mikoto,

"At first he was shocked to see a human like alien with powers similar to his own being found on Mars. I explained to him the past and we were both surprised to find he was a descendant from the Main Family of the Uchiha dynasty. Unfortunately he didn't have the Sharingan and other powers which were crucial for uniting the galaxy against the Reapers. He had a great mind and foresight which allowed him to see the bigger picture..."

"He knew the Alliance or even the surviving shinobi who had forgotten about history would never believe my tale. I would either be locked up in a psych ward or donated for scientific experiments. I was myself shocked to see the Prothean Empire had never emerged again, the galaxy was a changed place and it was almost just a few decades before the arrival of Sovereign and his minions. They would in time find out what the Kaiser had done and try to undo the sealing..."

"I had to prepare the galaxy in such little time and I couldn't do it alone. I needed a warrior, a soldier, a leader whom the galaxy would follow. So I created you...''

The people in the room were not sure whether to be shocked by what they just heard or from the fact that Mikoto gave Sakura a thrashing slap that sent her crashing several feet away.

"This ends now! I am not hearing any bullshit from your mouth and certainly not about him!" snarled Mikoto, grabbing the medic by the neck.

"It...won't...change...the...truth...Naruto...remember...Javik"

The Kaiser gripped his head giving out a silent scream as his mind was assaulted through hundreds of images of a stern looking Prothean in red armor, a Military Commander, a true soldier and defender of the Empire, but most of all a friend.

He was panting harshly, sweat rolling down his cheeks as Liara and Tali helped him steady himself.

"Sakura, why am I seeing these memories of people and places I don't know about? I'm not your Kaiser, I'm..." he said hesitantly,

"Yes, you are Naruto Namikaze. Son of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki. But you are also the man having my Kaiser's blood and genes running through your veins. His chakra runs through your body allowing you access to his powers, his memories. When my Kaiser died, I preserved his chakra, his memories, his flesh and blood. I used all that to make changes to you while you were still in your mother's womb. Why do you think your father specifically wanted you to lead the galaxy? Why did Minato ask Mikoto to watch out for you and guide you? It was not just to protect humanity..."

Naruto was screaming as the pain inside his head exploded with instant flashes of his father and Sakura standing over a sleeping Kushina inside a hospital, his father whispering inaudible things to him, the screams of the Protheans, the death of his brother Hayato, Ren's tears, Javik's promise for revenge. It was all...

Liara and Tali yelled at him to gain control, Mikoto squeezed Sakura's neck to dangerous levels, the Admirals were panicking, Garrus stared helplessly...

BANG

Mikoto felt blood splashing against her cheek and uniform as Sakura crumpled to the floor. The Blackops Director looked back to see Fleet Admiral Raval holding a now smoking gun in his hand. She looked at Sakura to find the woman writhing in pain courtesy of a shot to the shoulder.

"Get her to medical and after that, lock her up. I've had enough..." commanded Raval,

The Imperial Admirals instantly rushed forward and grabbed the injured medic and started dragging her out of the room.

"REMEMBER SASUKE!"

Raval slammed the butt of his pistol right on Sakura's face breaking her nose and facial bones instantly. The woman fell unconscious...

The power that descended inside the room made Raval knew he was too late. He whirled around just in time to see a monstrous amount of chakra being released from Naruto's entire body. Liara and Tali were sent sailing away like flies and crashed in different corners of the room violently.

"Restrain him!" ordered Raval,

Garrus jumped in sending a nasty kick to Naruto's head only to be sent sailing away as the sheer chakra pushed the Turian away.

Raval rushed in prepared to tackle down his unstable friend but never saw the punch hitting his face making him fly right outside the room.

The only person left standing was Mikoto who watched the man she loved open his eyes. They were pitch dark...

"Naruto?" she gently asked,

She trembled when he looked at her as if he didn't even recognize her. Like she was some kind of intriguing creature instead of the woman he loved. Still, she had to help him gain control, help him calm down...

All her thoughts went straight out the window when he flashed before her at speeds which even her active sharingan couldn't see. She gasped as a powerful punch knocked the wind out of her chest, a swift chop to the neck and she was out.

He looked at his bruised hands and at the knocked out people across the room. Thousands of flashes were happening across his mind : peoples, places, names, dates, memories, happiness, pain, anger, sadness, joy, grief, words, light, dark, color.

Voices.

He yelled in agony from the unbearable pain and thrashed violently against the window staring at the planet of Ilos.

"Freeze!"

Turning around, he found himself facing dozens of armed Imperial marines pointing their weapons at him.

He growled.