Chapter 27: The Crown of Black Blades


"There is no decision that we can make that doesn't come with some sort of balance or sacrifice."

-Simon Sinek


/Operation WHEELHOUSE Extraction Point

/Genbu City

/River Country

Sakura Haruno

Each step reminded Sakura her legs were nothing but bags of skin filled with rusty knives; a tell-tale sign of torn muscles and broken bones. Each step was an exercise in battling insidious demons; telling herself death wasn't an option for her or the boy who saved her life. Each step was a reminder that they still had a chance. Even if those demons in her mind were right.

Death really would be easier than duty.

The Hyūga Heir- no, she knew now she could never call him anything else but Hayato- slumped on her back, his pure dead weight settling on her like a physical reminder.

"We're almost there, Hayato. Stay with me."

She didn't dare stop to check if he was alive to hear her.

One foot in front of another, she navigated the Yomi-scape that Genbu City had become in what felt like a week's time, but was in reality only a few hours, passing in and out of side streets that she could just imagine had once been full of life and bustling activity.

Now they were nothing but husks of the dead and piles of ash.

Sakura never caught up to Ino as was planned, instead she caught the three unidentified Mist ninja, Chunin all, who were leading a company of rather more uniquely-qualified mercenaries. Armed with chakra-powered weapons of unknown origin and armor that shrugged off minor direct chakra-based attacks, Sakura would have died then and there if it hadn't been for Hayato.

The Gentle Fist, it turns out, was not gentle.

Nor were the chakra-infused arrows he fired, guided by invisible strings of spiritual energy unerringly to their targets' throats and vital points from almost a mile away.

Hayato proved so reliable that Sakura confidently faced a full platoon of the special mercenaries and two Chunin Mist ninja with only minor internal bleeding, a single concussion, and an acute case of chakra exhaustion to show for it, that and a lost kunai. The spiritual exhaustion was not even from fighting- from consecutive genjutsu that left her enemy reeling and unable to identify just how many the 'enemy' numbered until she killed them, one by one.

Poison made short work of the civilians, stabbing them as she had in their few vulnerable joints, but she saved the best for Mist. That whole encounter turned out to be one of several, sans more shinobi, thankfully.

Until the last one, at least.

With no ear piece to communicate, Sakura and Hayato worked without speaking, always joining back up after the enemy had been dealt with. Hayato tried to guide them around the roving bands in the burning city, but sometimes they had to go far out of their way and other times there just was no good path except through.

Less than a mile from WHEELHOUSE's extraction zone, Sakura picked up speed, trading caution for haste and as a result, didn't see the blade coming at the back of her spinal column from the sole remaining Mist-nin..

That is, until Hayato pushed her out of the way and took the hit himself.

He'd used chakra strings to manipulate a dozen arrows, steel ones at that, to cushion the blow with a spider webbing of crossed arrows, but the enemy shinobi had used Lightning Release to amplify the cutting power.

The arrows were the only reason Hayato wasn't in two pieces.

Not that she'd ever tell Hayato, but she was glad it was Lightning Release; the sheer heat helped cauterize the wound. What followed after the surprise attack was a brutal lesson in the cathartic effect of releasing your rage on a breakable object.

There was a reason so few ninja specialized in Genjutsu: one, because the ratio of reward to time needed for mastery was weighed against newbies, and two, because the creativity and clarity of mind required to craft convincing layered illusions could not be taught. Sakura counted on her speed, skill, and ability to layer multiple flows of illusions to overcome the massive disparity in chakra quality and quantity from the Chunin Mist-nin.

It did.

The last stretch into Konohagakure-held territory felt frozen; one moment stretched into an eternal, fluctuating battle against exhaustion and pain with Hayato's weight making every step a gauntlet.

"Sakura? Hayato!"

A hand pressed her to stop. Startled, Sakura looked up and saw her Advisor looking at her through eyes that she knew all too well now: sympathetic and knowing.

Shouts and words flowed in her ears and out, swirling around her but not finding purchase. Hands grabbed at her back as the weight of her charge lifted off her and the sudden weightlessness spiked agony through her legs.

No longer holding him, she fell and struggled to feel anything at all, the weight of what happened, what was still happening, unmoored her.

"... Sakura. Sakura! Where is the rest of your squad? Where is 5U?"

Someone was dribbling water into her mouth. The skin on the inside of her mouth was so parched that miniscule, painful cuts had started to open up as a result of the heat damage. Dry didn't begin to cover it.

Suddenly ravenous, her vision cleared as she took over dribbling water. Someone tried to stop her from drinking so much, but she half-growled, half-choked at the person. They must have backed off because she didn't have any further problems.

"...the city is lost. Gato must have brought everything he had."

She gasped, taking in air.

"The tower, oh shit, the Tower!"

Sakura grabbed at Mizuki's jacket from her kneeling place on the ground, "you have to send Jonin. Akatsuki are there."

Realizations, one after the other, hit her and sent her reeling again.

"FUCK. Ino! I couldn't find her. Is she okay? What about Hayato? Can you fix him? I-"

Iruka held up a hand. Once, that would've been enough to stop her rant.

Now it didn't. Sakura didn't even slow down.

"... where the fuck was everyone? We requested back-up!"

Memories flooded her, back from where they'd been tucked away, useless during her funeral march.

She honed in, standing up and backing up as she looked at Mizuki with narrowed eyes.

"You- you fucking traitor. You sent Aiko and Yuna and Ami to die on some bullshit scouting mission. You- Professor Iruka- Mizuki knew!"

Mizuki and Iruka shared a look- a look that almost made Sakura grab for her kunai.

"I- are you kidding? You heard his communications."

Mizuki didn't say anything, just looking for all the world like an owner whose favorite animal just died. A victim.

No. No fucking way.

"Go. I'll handle this. Yeah. I got it."

Mizuki nodded once in response to his colleague's words and sighed, giving one last regretful look at Sakura, who glared at him, before Iruka's words diverted her from the prospect of gutting the traitor that had her team killed.

"...Ino made it here well before you."

The relief of that fact rushed through her and made her weak in the knees.

She fell again, just catching a nearby supply crate that she leaned against as Iruka continued speaking.

"The Hokage has gone personally to retrieve her daughter. Rest easy."

Something about that sparked a memory, a line in her brain. Unformed, uneasy horror stole over her. Wrong. Wrong. That was bad, wasn't it? The Hokage going to grab Satsuki? Why was that bad again?

"...No team has come in from the town aside from you and by now most teams are actually on the boats headed back to the coast of Fire."

But there was something nagging her, something she needed to say, yet her brain wasn't working. The concussion perhaps? She did still feel woozy.

"Are- are you sending a team?"

"No. The Hokage ordered an all-hands evacuation. She assured us she'd retrieve the last few and meet us back at the LZ. She came personally when she heard that Fugaku himself was leading the enemy."

That sparked something. But what? Why did that sound wrong?

How… how did she know Fugaku was here?

Sakura tried her best to fit the pieces together and speak, but there was too much cotton stuffed into her head. Instead, she let herself be herded to where Ino was pacing anxiously. Sakura noticed the bandages all over her body.

Iruka disappeared and then Ino was helping her sit. The smell of lavender and aloe, normally a calming combination, just reminded her that only Ino was really, truly- safe. Sakura still had questions for her Advisor, but he disappeared too quickly. Together, quietly, they watched the swarm of people around them readying the last of the hydrofoils for departure.

Iruka came back with some hot tea and fairly shoved it into her hands.

Sakura realized she'd been staring, holding Ino's hand.

"I would complain that you were supposed to protect us, Professor Iruka, but you warned us… didn't you?"

Startled, some tea slopped over her hands. She ignored the burning heat.

"How did you know?"

Ino's eyes narrowed at Iruka. Iruka remained a rock. The wavering was in his voice.

"...the Hokage. She seemed… unnaturally calm about reports that concerned me. I wanted… I merely…"

Their Advisor, normally stoic, but passionate when the topic suited him, seemed to age a thousand years right in front of them.

"Mizuki and I were concerned about deployment patterns and intelligence we'd independently received. So we tried to shield you as best as possible. He suggested moving your assignments to avoid the worst of it. We failed."

Silence seemed to stretch in the space between the three of them.

"I'm sorry."

An alarm sounded throughout the camp and Iruka was helping them both up and pushing them towards where Hayato was strapped to a stretcher and being loaded into the front-half of the nearest hydrofoil.

"Stay together. We'll talk more when we get back, okay?"

Ino squeezed Sakura's hand and they both headed inside the hydrofoil, taking positions on the uncomfortable crash-bar seats. Both were soon lost in their own thoughts as the engine started, vibrating the whole ship. Then they were underway and heading away from this place of death and sadness.

By her wristwatch, which was remarkably just cracked and not completely destroyed, forty-five minutes passed when a red-alert barked through the open hold. A spiritual pressure bloomed overhead, a feeling like staring at the sun directly, filling her mind. And she wasn't even a sensor.

Sakura's head snapped up to look through the tiny porthole to a glowing silver barrier that blocked off most of the open strait that comprised their route back to Fire.

"What the hell is that?"

Ino looked equally confused.


#


/Tadashi Plaza

/Genbu City

/River Country

Naruto Uzumaki

A low humming sound, the tell-tale sign of a Lightning Release technique, was music to Naruto's ears. He watched as the borrowed blade took on the particular pale hue of his lightning-natured chakra.

Jūzō Biwa watched him, shoulders back, with all the nonchalance of a lion tolerating a cubs play, a faint razor-edged smile on his lips. Obviously, he felt no particular rush to this battle, now that Naruto chose to stay and confront him head-on.

"That's some fancy tattoos you got on your face there, boy. I, too, like me some squiggly-wiggly lines. Though I usually paint with blood- finger-painting is all I'm good at and that's only good for a picture afterwards. Once everyone is dead, that is. People like to squirm if you do it while they're alive. Ruins the picture."

Naruto touched his fingers to his face, feeling around for the typical hard spot on his forehead that characterized the Yin Seal.

Now, he felt lines extending from them in a swirling X-shaped pattern, spreading into his hair, across both cheeks to his forehead and down his chin. Naruto, with one hand, followed them and knew without looking that his whole body was covered in them.

Trading his blade from one hand to the other, Naruto took off his jacket with one shrugging motion, by this point shredded into rags from the Hunger Release techniques, and threw it on the ground. Freed from his jacket, Naruto stared at the revealed thick black lines criss-crossing his arms and linking to his Control Seals.

Taking stock of his status, as Juzo was in no hurry that he saw, Naruto knew he still had most of his actual reserves to play with and a comparatively miniscule amount of the Yin Seal storage left.

That would have to be enough.

"Not a talker, huh? What a sad, sad day this is for you then. No wonderful conversation to usher you off into Yomi, no honorable, if trite, platitudes before the end. BUM-MER."

Not responding, Naruto flooded himself with chakra. Normally, he'd stop short of fully activating his Lightning Mark, but this time… he let it build.

And build.

He felt the plasma channels , like those present in clouds before lightning struck, forming an invisible, ozone-smelling lattice around his body as if it was preparing to build a structure.

[What are my odds?]

Kaguya was quick.

[If you stop holding back? Fairly even- though that's a model of someone we have not seen the full capabilities of.]

[I won against Raiga with the element of surprise.]

[Saying you, 'won' is a stretch. That won't work here. You'll need to pull everything together that we've been working on in secret- Tool Creation, the Aegis, the Blades...all of it.]

Naruto thought for a moment as he watched Jūzō crack his neck with a sickening, impossibly vicious yank of his own head.

[Can you smooth things over for me?]

[Stop leaning on me as a crutch.]

[After he's dead. Promise.]

[You know I'm no Worldmind.]

[I have no idea what that is-]

[I always forget how ignorant you are...fine. Just this once. No more.]

With only one blade and no allies to worry about as collateral damage, Naruto swung his blade up in a straight salute. Sound buzzed in his ears from the active Lightning Release.

Jūzō didn't respond.

Instead, the cleaver twice the size of an adult man twirled in his hands, seemingly lighter than a feather, and with one thunderous, cracking step that crossed the intervening space in one fluid moment, battle was joined.

Immediately, without any activation of the Lightning Mark, Naruto knew that speed-wise he couldn't possibly keep up. The difference between a Jonin's honed body and his was impossibly wide. Yet the plasma channels carved through the air over his skin with his Lightning Release, oddly matching the black lines from the Yin Seal, completed their invisible framework over his skin before the first, thunderous, step. That step wasn't fast enough.

Jūzō wasn't faster than thought.

Naruto felt Kaguya's influence seep into him as his thoughts became clearer, sharper, his body felt lighter. In the infinitesimal space between one step and another, the infinite moment he knew Kaguya was giving him, he focused deep: and, for the first time since he'd conceived the Lightning Mark as the stress-addled thoughts of a child with grander thoughts than he could ever manifest, Naruto visualized his original, real intention behind the concept. To be the armored juggernaut that wouldn't stop until all his opponents were dead in front of him, the glory of being the greatest warrior that ever lived and breathed.

Into the space where his hopes lived, he spoke the words into the space within himself where he knew those things resided, waiting, the way you must when you cannot use hand seals to capture the form, the intent.

"Lightning Release Chakra Mode: Mantle of the Sword Sage."

Each curve of his lips, speaking into that breath between a heartbeat, slammed him with power. Intention met Will met the visualization of what he wanted to be.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk. Thunk.

Between one humming moment of life and the next, Naruto watched Juzo's zanbato sweep at his neck with all the speed and force of not just a powerful Jonin, but a member of Akatsuki and all that entailed.

The sound came rapid now, so fast it echoed as one.

Thunk. Thunk. . . .

He could feel his perception speeding up to match Jūzō as Kaguya adjusted things for him, felt the chakra flood out of him, draining into solidifying Lightning-natured chakra into plates of armor that covered him from head to toe in the very same armor he'd looked at with awe what felt like years ago at the Gates of Iron Country. The face of an Oni, eight-feet of Seal-powered armor that protected Iron Country for thousands of years.

Kerthunk.

With the last sound, he was fully-covered, technique complete. Naruto stared at Jūzō through what he knew would be the slightly-opaque, demonic great-helm with sweeping curved horns made of chakra and he thought, maybe for an instant, the Mist-nin hesitated, eyes widening, off-balance in the split second before his blade made contact with Naruto's neck, then narrowed, focused.

Naruto watched the oversized cleaver inch towards his face...

...then time seemed to freeze and he leaned out of the way, his movements, now matching his thoughts, accelerating into explosive, painful, powered fluidity that took him just enough away from the blade, millimeters out of the range of his instant death, that it gave him the advantage. His muscles screamed with the agony of the fast movement. He wrenched a muscle in his neck as the blade connected with one of the thick curved horns made of chakra.

Just for a second.

Jūzō's eyes widened with the narrowing of the speed gap.

Naruto was all too aware that they were now roughly even, still in favor of Jūzō.

His opponent didn't know that. So it was time to make him think Naruto was a Kage in disguise.

Then Naruto's blade came up and almost took off the Monster of Hidden Mist's arm at the wrist, the deadly humming from his blade growing loud, a glottal whine, as he fed chakra to it like he would a hungry beast.

Jūzō grinned again, wider this time, and laughed.

Then the battle was really joined.

Back and forth Naruto and Jūzō moved, sheet lightning crackling off their blades as they ducked and dodged when they couldn't block, the times their blades did meet flat-to-edge caused thunder to ring out in the Plaza. Precise timing mattered more than anything else as one wrong move, from counter, to counter-parry, to riposte, would have resulted in instant death. But only for Naruto. Until Naruto realized the armor deflected the zanbato when he blocked a full-strike on one arm. Yet that only evened things more, didn't give Naruto an edge.

Jūzō countered everything smoothly, as if he'd seen it all coming.

What many didn't realize about the type of swordsmanship they were engaged in was that you couldn't really see the blade from how fast it was moving.

Instead, all of you funneled into a trance focused on where your opponent's blade would be, not using eyes to track it, but predicting in space where your block needed to be. Thus, swordsmanship at high-levels was as much guesswork- strategy and probability- based on tuned-in senses towards your opponent's wrists and the angle of attack than it was watching the blade and moving to block.

Naruto had to admit as his plate-covered arms rose and fell in a blur, aching under the powerful strain of this much Lightning chakra, his body, equal to the size of Jūzō now, twisting and piroutting, sliding under or other or away from that fucking stupidly massive blade, was that Jūzō earned his title as a Master Swordsman.

More so than any other he'd faced.

Everything Naruto tried was countered or avoided, yet each time Naruto was forced to block, the sheer force and weight of the blade paired with Jūzō's strength inched him closer to defeat.

Jūzō was strong.

Like, Choji Unveiled strong.

Despite his amplified speed and the subsequent power increase to his attacks, that did not mean he could match Jūzō in that area for long. His speed would hold while he still had the chakra. But his arm would give way before then or his sword, a normal one, would break. Reinforced by Lightning Chakra as his might have been, the Kubikiriboucho was leagues better than this common weapon and would shave away at his armor if he let it.

They danced for what seemed like days in a barely-visible grid-lock of wrist-locks, close-range strikes, and blurring slashes.

Yet there was a testing quality to it, like Jūzō wanted to see all Naruto could do in sequence. His hunch proved true when Jūzō became a bladed whirlwind, his hands indistinguishable on the hilt as he rotated and came at Naruto from what felt like every direction.

Water droplets hit his face from his environment and Naruto realized he'd been too focused. Death came from the thing you didn't see coming, after all.

Naruto didn't even have time to feel regret, still occupied with fending off a storm of slashes. The Jonin seeded, while he wasn't paying attention, the battlefield with puddles. Naruto backflipped, avoiding the nine different strikes, forced to block the last as he came up from his flip, and strained.

Blocking with one hand the full force of Jūzō and his behemoth of a blade almost broke him.

Then his left hand came up, pointed straight into Jūzō's stomach, fingers splayed. Light burst around his claw-armored hands like tiny stars. A large shadow fell over him, but he couldn't break the technique now. Not this close.

"Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder!"

A tidal wave of water swallowed Naruto and his Lightning technique fizzled out against the swirling water droplet-shaped prison barrier that engulfed him and squeezed his Mantle of the Sword Sage technique like a vice grip.

If not for that, he'd be struggling for breath right about now.

The strange, sound-dampened feeling of being underwater made it tough to hear the no-doubt cackling nonsense of Jūzō, but oddly enough, it made Naruto stop and think, clearing his head of the single-mindedness that almost got him killed.

Knife-edge his focus might have to be, but being a shinobi was about more than swordsmanship. That was eminently clear today. Naruto needed to do better. No real shinobi would have fallen for such an obvious set up.

Kaguya told him that he needed to use everything he had.

[Alright- this is it.]

[I'm ready, Seed. Let us be done with this oaf.]

Drawing his Will around him like the armor he was wearing, Naruto sketched an Aegis in the air through thick water, the script for… a normal function. This time, the Aegis was strong, glowing with powerful chakra like a technique written into reality itself. And the water forming the prison started draining immediately, funneling into it like a plug pulled at the bottom of a bathtub.

Jūzō gaped, but recovered quickly, going from cackling glee to cold anger on a dime.

Naruto wasted no time. Neither did Jūzō.

The water drew in quickly and Naruto dropped, the Aegis coming with him.

Seizing hold of it like a chakram, he twisted, dropping into a crouch and using every bit of Kaguya-enhanced perception to Write another Aegis as Jūzō flash-stepped in front of him. His hand blurred, dragging his glowing fingertip through the complicated character.

This time, Naruto smiled.

And water thundered back out of the Aegis into Jūzō's chest, blasting him backwards like Choji had earlier.

[This will not put him down.]

[It doesn't have to… I'll do the rest. I might need you again, once more at least.]

Feeling the Yin Seal's remaining dregs draining quickly towards nothingness, despite all his training, as he kept up his full-powered Mantle technique, constant usages of the Control Seal, and the technique coating his blade, Naruto sprinted after the downed Jūzō, following the dropping, rolling, skipping body of one of Hidden Mist's most notorious killers as he ragdolled across the plaza.

Still wary of the zanbato, Naruto pushed chakra into his blade once more, upping the amplitude, conscious of the drain, and took hold of it in both hands and brought it down on the defenseless Jonin.

...who, even downed, backhanded his sword away with so much force that Naruto lost his grip on it and it sputtered with light, dimming, as it sailed away from him, clattering on the ground some distance away.

Naruto's eyes widened behind his helm as he looked down.

The Lightning Armor Chakra Mode fizzled and died. Jūzō could see his shocked face now.

He needed to sell it after all.

Jūzō stared up at him in savage glee, seemingly unfazed by his tumble, already kneeling, in the middle of an upswing that would see Naruto sliced in twain, with no enhanced speed to save him.

A half second too late he noticed Naruto's grin, equally savage.

Committed to the upswing, Jūzō couldn't stop it.

Naruto thrust his hand down, gripping the wrist of his right hand with his left, fingers splayed out and used- not his finger, but his will- and qSketched another Aegis onto the world. The distance his arm traveled was minimal. Naruto got there first, despite the lack of speed technique.

Kubikiriboucho slammed into the new script-circle with all of Jūzō's immense chakra-enhanced strength. The Aegis cracked.

But held.

"Seal!"

Kubikiriboucho disappeared from Jūzō's hands. The Monster stared down uncomprehendingly as his weapon vanished.

Naruto's mind strained with the effort of Forging so many Aegis Techniques. Now that the Mantle was gone though...

Jūzō screamed in fury, the force a physical thing that slapped Naruto like a fist, knocking him back. The gargantuan Nukenin loomed over Naruto with fist drawn back.

Naruto let himself fall and, in mid motion, Forged one last Aegis between his hands pressed against his chest, waiting. He stared into Jūzō Biwa's eyes and took hold of Kubikiriboucho, reappearing from within the sealing space.

Between him and Jūzō.

The Jonin fell on him and crushed him into the ground, wetness splashing up and around in a wave as they landed in a puddle. The air was ground mercilessly out of his lungs as two-hundred and fifty pounds of weight choked the life out of him.

Naruto knew there was no way Jūzō survived being impaled on his own blade. So Naruto shoved the man off, now realizing how strained his chakra coils and system were, his tenketsu ached all over his body, pins and needles thrumming through him like a terrible reflection of his previous speed. Standing like a conqueror, Naruto screamed to the heavens from sheer relief of being alive.

Then he looked down at Jūzō.

Sightless, staring eyes met his. Then the body melted into a puddle, grinning.

Kubikiriboucho made a grinding sound as it dragged behind him. Then its immense weight, the dissonance of hearing two zanbatos confusing him, as the one in his hand disappeared, melting into water that splashed to the ground like the imminent sound of his lifeblood spilling all over the plaza.

Naruto turned and stared into a dozen Juzo Biwa's rising from the ground like wraiths made of water chakra- and his death stared at him from a hundred angles. The call from Kaguya to run pounded through his head in a scream that caused pins-and-needles to pass through his body in a wave.

Naruto needed no encouragement.

But there was no time.

Naruto threw his chakra into his tenketsu in a painful storm-surge.

This time, the activation time of the Mantle shaved down to a crystal moment.

One heartbeat,

thump

...plates of Forged chakra clanking around him just in time to take a full-powered blow straight to the chest from a beaten, battered, but totally unharmed Jūzō. Blood leaked from beneath shredded black-and-red robes- but that was it. Colors blurred as Naruto went from standing still, bracing himself, to becoming part of multiple houses in a line that stretched hundreds of feet. Time and distance became unintelligible as pain became his world.

When Naruto came to, he didn't know how long he was flying or laying in rubble like an idiot, his vision blurred. After a minute, he fully came to and did an assessment of his condition, so sure as he was that he was dead.

The Forged chakra was cracked around his breastplate area, and spider-webbing fissures no doubt ran rampant across the back of his head, back, and legs, but overall he was just one massive bruise- but not dead.

That was what counted.

And he would be dead if he didn't come up with a strategy. Naruto knew next to nothing about the capabilities of the Monster of the Hidden Mist and that was now seeming like a severe oversight. He was no push-over.

Did I really think I could beat someone like this in one-on-one combat? Maybe with a team…

[Stop it. Focus or we die.]

That's right… Kaguya was here too. What would happen to her if I die here?

Naruto didn't want to find out.

[Naruto.]

[What?]

[I'm sorry I didn't prepare you better.]

[Is this really the time-]

[Yes, it is. I'm realizing that I… I need to be honest with you. About everything.]

[Unless this will help me kill Juzo, I don't want to hear it right now.[

Kaguya paused, time standing still.

[Hear me, Seed, for I speak as a being Greater than anything on this world: when you step away from the nursery that you call this planet and enter the larger world, how much chakra you wield starts not to mean as much as you think it does. You gain access to the energy of the very Fabric. Natural chakra is this energy. It has no nature and is simply… clay.]

[I… have never heard any of the shit you're talking about.]

Had he? There was something about that that resonated.

[You mold it with your Will.]

[But there is something beyond even this- and it comes from manifesting who you are. Do you understand? You must become in a way that I cannot explain to you with this little time. You… you are a swordsman, yes? First and foremost? You cut those Aegis techniques into the Fabric of reality. Your Electromagnetic Murder technique mimics a sword. Your Tool Creation can only create swords even though others similar techniques can create anything.]

Was she right?

[...to reach beyond and become, you must be a perfect example of swordsmanship. This incurs certain… power. Certain privileges. Anything you do that touches the very idea of swordsmanship is something you then control. This is the symbol your Hokage wields when she summons those blades. The Crown.]

[This is great, Kaguya, but- wait, the Hokage-]

A dozen Juzo's waited, staring death at him, all with Kubikiriboucho angled across their shoulders in eerie synchronization. Naruto shook his head, focusing.

[-but I can't defeat him with just my swordsmanship. I need-]

[No, you don't. Show me your true power, Naruto. I meant what I said. Become the very embodiment here and now, as is proper- on the field of battle. That is how it is done, where I'm from. Chakra arts from here on out only get weirder.]

[But-]

[Your friends have died because you refuse to push as far as you know you need to go. There is no training, no refinement you can make right now except this. You must stop running. You've run since Iron. That ends now, does it not? Even if you die? A swordsman never backs down. He stands until his foes are dead, no matter the odds. That is how you must grow. Use your Will and show me. When you commit, you win or you die. That is all. That is everything. Do you understand?]

A deep, black voice inside him roared that everyone and everything he loved would die if he tried anything at all. He was fast because he was used to running after all, wasn't it? Not because he was a quick fighter?

Running, that was all he was good for-

His hand scrabbled in the rubble, searching for… searching for something.

[SHOW ME WHO YOU ARE!]

Kaguya never, from the day he'd forged an uneasy alliance slash partnership of mutual benefit, screamed at him with the psychotic force she'd used in their first, deadly, meeting. This was the eldritch Goddess from beyond the void of stars, the thing that everyone wanted, the being that created planets.

And she was shouting now.

Commanding, and angry, and most of all- disappointed.

Show them.

If he'd known that just a sword could have saved Kazan, if he'd just cut through every foe in his way and blazed a path to his friend, his friend would still be alive, wouldn't he?

Without knowing, he'd stood up and had begun to walk towards Juzo.

Maybe. But Ouran.. He ran and Ouran died, didn't he? So, too, Yojimbra and Taza. Chakra only became weirder.

The Crown. Become a symbol of swordsmanship.

Step.

Yet…

The Gutter. Naruto followed his gut and saved Kazan, yet Kazan ended up dying. He carved his way out of that Yomi-hole and it sang inside him with the rightness. The same thing happened to Raiga, didn't it? But no, he was running and it's only when he stopped that things were put right.

Step.

If he'd faced Neji like his conscience screamed at him to do, so long ago in the Academy, maybe things would be different. Better. He'd have been friends earlier, with more time to prepare?

Step.

Perhaps if he'd faced Tsunade with more conviction, told her the real reason he wanted to learn to heal- to balance the horror he saw what felt like every time he went to sleep, maybe she would've listened.

Step.

Satsuki, though. What if they'd faced her father together? Instead of waiting for him to finish monologuing like some super-villain from the movies?

Step.

Almost like a gear shifting, becoming unstuck, thoughts clicked into line and Naruto knew Kaguya was right. Something shifted inside his chakra system, some realization of rightness and his chakra ran smoother, in an ordered pattern, taking on an element of sharpness. But more like the idea of sharpness. This was what he'd be, right? A blade? That didn't feel totally right either, though it was half of the equation of who he was. This was, at the beginning, a right step.

Towards death or legend, Naruto ran like a boulder rolling down a mountain, inexorable and unstoppable. He'd never moved so fast in his life without chakra enhancement as concrete thoughts, plans and stratagems, fled in the face of every lesson he'd ever had about swordsmanship, all crystalizing in him like a blademaster wore him like a suit.

Instinct rose like a fishing line in water; perfection with a blade was the fish he reeled in as his life depended on it. Then Mifune was there, ane everyone who ever helped teach him the sword, guiding his hand, joining him as he wielded his sword like a paintbrush; gentle and firm, smiling at him quietly; no sadness, no bitterness, just the event horizon line between unshakeable serenity and a righteous, cool rage.

The line that Mifune always spoke of; the balance of Yin and Yang.


#


Unbeknownst to him, deep in her Throneworld of bone columns, Kaguya watched the Him that was outside- yet also watched the Naruto that was with her, now, eyes closed outside in the middle of a desert of a million blades, hands raising slowly from his sides to a pose that seemed he was beckoning a god above. Inside and out, at the same time.

She watched with terror and awe as something huge, gargantuan moved among the shadowed clouds in the sky inside his soul space. He was the youngest person she'd ever seen even begin to touch his own Throneworld. Even by Otsutsuki standards, high-standards outside this plane, Naruto was a prodigy.

Despite his rudimentary Throne, a barren wartorn space in his soul covered in swords of all descriptions, there was real power here. Not the fragment of her son's strongest sacrificial lamb, nor her strength, or not just those, but a deep sense of rolling Will that was all Naruto.

Twelve zanbato's rose and fell and, without looking, Naruto met them all with a borrowed blade from the ground; a shadowed white and black static ran along the edge of the ordinary iron sword.

Held in twain by the knife-edge of focus and awareness, of something other, larger than himself rising in his body, Naruto wove through the forest of blades as if he could see where they would be before they struck, avoiding the ones he couldn't block, redirecting each blade into the path of the others as Juzo and his Water Clones tried to overwhelm him with numbers, strength, and power.

Naruto smiled and remembered his grandfather.

The smell of blade wax, chava grinds, and old parchment danced in his nose; tears, rage, and a smile mixing as his mind emptied and his hands moved.

The reserves from the Yin Seal slowly emptied, yet he danced on, blade rising and falling around him like a cloak made of steel. One, then two, then four, then six Water Clones burst under the passage of his blade through places that would've been vital death strokes on a normal human.

All swords were one. He knew that now. Unbeknownst to him, a crown of black fuzzed into existence above his head and dark clouds roiled, forming the same smoky shape above him in the sky above the space where Jūzō and Naruto fought.


#


Kaguya watched Naruto in her soul space and in that damned Plaza simultaneously. The more white-than-blonde Uzumaki sat now, eyes closed, hands still, on a throne made entirely black blades that flowed up around him like water into a chair that cradled instead of stabbed.

Clad in contrasting painfully-bright and eye-warpingly-dark plate armor, throbbing midnight-and-silver energy flowed around him in an Aegis that split the sky. The symbol for a bladed infinity.

The Crown of Black Blades. The Ideal represented mastery of swordsmanship. Many manifested it amongst her people, only after reaching a certain density of chakra and an output of strong will, but none so young and none with such a powerful string of script. There was an edge of hunger, of consumption, of a rolling tidal wave of destruction and pure power.

-Replicate. Endless. Blade. Consume. Destruction. Power. Protect. Power. Destruction. Consume. Blade. Endless. Replicate-

The script hurt when she stared at it for too long.

He hurt when she looked at him for too long.

This was the Seed she attached herself to?

Kaguya began to laugh and she couldn't stop the manic edge.


#


Jūzō Biwa didn't know how it happened, but he was losing.

Slowly, steadily, but he was losing. The fucking shit stain wasn't strong per se, nor was he really fast, not in the traditional sense… but…

How was this possible?

He was tired, no, exhausted for the first time in what seemed like ages and was close to empty. This was no trainee, no Genin-hopeful. This… this boy wielded power that brushed uncomfortably close to the miracles and things that he'd seen his God perform. Blasphemy, as much as he chastised and made fun of Fugaku for it, wasn't something from which he could turn a blind eye.

Skill was important, more than most shinobi ever knew, but no amount of skill could take care of such a harsh mismatch.

No more fun and games.

Whoever this elite ninja was hiding under a genjutsu of a strange-looking child, they would die- here and now. With a thought, hand seals passed in a heartbeat.

"ENOUGH!"

Water exploded around him as he converted the water droplets in the air into a thundering wave that burst with concussive force against several of the more unsteady houses behind the now-dead heathen.

...except he was unharmed. Where…?

His senses, spiritual and otherwise, screamed at him to look up-

Jūzō barely had time to process that his foe wasn't where he'd sensed him a moment early before this Naruto Uzumaki fell onto him like a meteor with a shining sword of black-and-white fuzzy light. Behind him a smoky crown manifested in the air.

What the-?

Lightning Chakra?

Jūzō couldn't tell if it was Naruto screaming or if he was as wind rippled around them both, stealing the sound ripped his blade up from where it was held loosely in the aftermath of his Explosive Tsunami Technique and intercepted a perfect strike that would've killed him instantly.

There was a grinding sound as the static-wavering edge of the longsword Naruto was wielding, cut, ever so slowly, into Kubikiriboucho.

Jūzō Biwa goggled, Monster of the Hidden Hist and rogue ninja who'd killed tens of thousands of people across a decade, gritted his teeth, redoubled his efforts, and growled.

Instead of furious, like Jūzō expected, there was a strangely calm expression on his face; his violet eyes seemed to burn with… pity? Did he expect to win this and knew death waited for his opponent?

A guttural scream wrenched out of his throat, rage boiling. The cleaver-sword couldn't take much more of the contact with that strange chakra.

This fucking whelp thought he'd win did he? Nobody got the better of Jūzō Biwa!

Two Water Clones, handseal-less, rose silently behind the Leaf-nin and launched themselves at his back-

-only for the ordinary longsword, one moment lunging at his throat, the next brushing aside the two clones attack without looking, only to return to their target without any wasted movement.

Grinning he slipped aside from the blade with an inch to spare, he knew. He knew without looking that he'd side-stepped the fatal strike. The humming of that deadly blade passed close, yes, but-

Jūzō felt a tiny pain in his throat as he tried to swallow, to pull oxygen into his lungs. The oxygen was watery with a metallic taste.

Something dripped down his throat and his legs stopped working, watching the world tilt, now just a perfect view of that lying brat. Ragged clothing showing rents and tears where his blade passed close, but not close enough.

There was a surprisingly little amount of blood.

How could that be?

The world grew cold, his thoughts thickening as he pressed a shaking hand to what he knew would be there when he felt his neck; a ruined, cauterized tunnel where his esophagus used to be.

Narrowing, his world collapsed and his last thought before the darkness caved in on him was that there was no dignity in death. He felt his bowels loose themselves and couldn't scream his rage as Jūzō Biwa, once the Boogeyman of the Hidden Mist, died shitting and pissing himself.


#


Laughed echoed around him as Naruto, with eyes closed, stood over his adversary's still-warm corpse.

Of course it wasn't done. When would it ever be?

A certain someone needs to die first for that.

Naruto knew that now, didn't he? This was all connected, so much more than he'd ever known. But he knew now. Kaguya had a lot to answer for after this, if they even got out alive, which was looking less likely by the minute.

"Fugaku."

The sound of a cloaked form dropping from a height was lost amidst the roar of a house, the victim of Jūzō's technique, collapsing.

"Uzumaki. You are exceptional with a blade. I know of no one to challenge you there, truly. Your great-grandfather would be proud. Even my ex-wife, magnificent as she is, would find you a difficult battle I'm sure."

Boots tapped as Naruto felt more than saw Fugaku coming closer.

"How fucking dare you stand there and talk about Mifune?"

Naruto opened his eyes to find the grin on Fugaku's face fading to an unexpected solemnity.

"Forgive me. I meant Ashina Uzumaki. The man was a devil with two blades."

Naruto had never heard the name Ashina Uzumaki before. No doubt another lie.

"Lies from a liar. What a surprise."

Scoffing, eyes darting, Naruto tried not to let on when he spied Kubikiriboucho.

"You'd be stricken white- well," Fugaku grinned again, like he was in on a boyish joke with a close-friend, "more white- with what secrets and juicy darknesses you can find stuffed into this tower mainframe."

The longer he could keep him talking, the more time he gave his friends to back him up. Assuming any of them were still alive. Sakura went to get reinforcements, hadn't she?

"Our God, the Lord Pain, knew that- knows that the truth always hurts, but ultimately sets us free. If you come with me-"

"Come with you? Are you as stupid as you are fucking psycho? What makes you think," a gloved hand cut him off, Fugaku again looking serious, "God is not aligned with The Conqueror as he once was. We have what we need. He can be yours, if you but deign to kneel to the One True Deity."

"That fruitcake with delusions of grandeur can lick the brown off my-"

"Forgive me, but you cannot honestly think you hold a candle to my Lord or The Conqueror himself- especially if you cannot contend with a snake like Orochimaru. Or myself, for that matter?"

"I'm a quick learner."

He really tried to keep the dryness out of his voice, but exhaustion was creeping in on him and it was hard enough to keep the pain out.

"Unlike Satsuki? Not quick enough, boy."

That damnable smile was back.

He was in on a joke of which Naruto was not privy.

Feeling his reserves, which mostly consisted of hopes and dreams and wisps of the deepest parts of his channels, a feeling he felt only one time before. The feeling of true emptiness.

Gathering everything he had, Naruto punched through the dregs and hit the reserve of Will he knew lay in him and kept going, reaching for more- for everything.

Unbeknownst to him, Kaguya lent him the Authority to go deeper, to her reserves, taking from the planetoid she'd spent almost a year shaping. Her escape, her saving grace.

Greedily, he drank.

Fugaku looked over his shoulder, at something that Naruto was vaguely aware of via spiritual senses: a tickling sensation.

Come on!

Come on!

This was his one shot, while Fugaku was distracted.

Naruto Forged, this time bigger than he'd ever tried before. Kaguya strained, hurting her still-weak self to aid him.

A blackness, indistinct in shape, but different from his regular Aegis Techniques, bloomed above him, so large as to cover the plaza in shade.

The technique, a Tool-Creation larger than anything he'd ever tried, wouldn't gel together, his Will- stretched to the breaking point, wouldn't Forge properly. He struggled on, aware that Fugaku was focused on something other than him. This was his only shot. His only means of survival and he'd take it if it killed him. Naruto felt his channels fraying, pain lancing through his body. Kaguya struggled, deep inside, to shut him out of the authority she'd given him, but he wouldn't let go.

Kaguya was now just screaming, helpless. Naruto didn't hear her.

Come on!

I WON'T DIE HERE.

But it wouldn't come.


#


/Operation WHEELHOUSE Extraction Point

/Genbu City

/River Country

Shikamaru Nara

No one had ever prepared Shikamaru Nara to face the sheer, heart-stabbing guilt, anxiety and panic that came with fucking up in such a massive way.

So, as usual, Shikamaru thought of something else.

Anything other than the fact that people he cared about were dead because of him; decisions he'd made, thinking he was again smart enough to see any traps coming far enough in advance that he could avoid them.

Yes, something else.

Like the fact the ambushes and timing of their encounters suggested an inside-job, a traitor in the ranks of Konohagakure's upper-management.

"Shikamaru."

Choji ranged ahead of them as they came within sight of the Extraction Zone and safety. But no, there is a traitor here, isn't there? Is anywhere safe?

Kiba was talking to him. "What?"

Satsuki didn't even move with any of the jostling, stumbling steps Kiba took. Bone-deep weariness was painted into every line of the Inuzuka. But he had her in a death-grip, like his continued sanity hinged on Satsuki living or dying, and he being the one to bring her there. Shikamaru had tried suggesting they take turns to ensure they were as fresh as possible. He'd simply gripped the girl tighter and growled.

"Why did Fugaku Uchiha, of all people, want the Communication Tower active? What's the point?"

That, Kiba, is an excellent question.

"I truly have no idea, Kiba."

Choji came back, the same look of weariness a perfect reflection on his face, and stood as if the desire to be seen standing was the only thing keeping him upright.

"I spoke with Gai, they have a space for her. We gotta take her now. There is a full retreat in effect. Almost complete."

Kiba brushed past them and Shikamaru raised a hand to stop him then hesitated. Every second they could give her would matter.

"Go with him."

Choji nodded and the Nara watched the two leave. He stepped the last few feet to the edge of the embankment and looked down on the controlled chaos of the extraction. Hydro-foils, the same boats that brought them to the beach, were ferrying them away with the same alacrity with which they'd arrived.

A significantly-reduced number of boats, as Shikamaru saw, meant a high casualty rate. Or he could be wrong and they'd begun much earlier. He was starting to doubt his own thinking more and more these days.

The beach had been cleaned up, enemy bodies moved and stacked like firewood by support staff. Five or six of the white-tented triage centers dotted the space evenly and he spotted Gatsuda, the medic-nin Naruto mentioned, almost immediately as he was head and shoulders taller than all the others.

Kiba stumbled into one of the tents, the first one, and Shikamaru watched as he argued with a white-clad medic. Gatsuda was already headed his way, so Shikamaru drifted, trying to distract himself.

Scanning, Shikamaru picked out the unmistakable and of course pristine form of Hyūga Neji. Oddly, he was helping what appeared to be an unconscious and bloody Rock Lee into a hydrofoil, along with two others. They locked eyes and Shikamaru, even from this distance, knew Neji recognized him. There wasn't any hostility strangely enough, but a wary respect. Shikamaru nodded. Neji nodded back. The door closed and they broke contact.

"Shikamaru?"

He turned, facing the stolid mass that was Gai.

Gai was known colloquially as the Green Beast of Konoha because the man was currently ranked among the most powerful Jonin the Leaf could field. And the number two in physical power. He could, as rumors had it, lift and throw a full-size autobus. Only Tsunade could best him and hers was a control-trick with chakra combined with her own physical power.

His was purely physical.

A beast, in other words.

But Shikamaru wasn't truly focused on Gai, nor on the words coming out of his mouth. His mind whirled and did somersaults trying to grapple with a complex problem.

"...did good. Youth shone! Orders are to grab the two that came with you and get on boat four."

What is the ultimate objective? It had to be… too organized. Too organized.

Bait? Yes. Pieces moved very carefully.

Bait for who? A bunch of kids? No. Satsuki? Ah.

Then he knew.

"This is a trap. Gai-sensei- the Hokage-"

The huge man laid one bear-paw of a hand on his shoulder, another time the solidness and warmth of that hand would be immensely reassuring. Now, he was in Shikamaru's way.

"This is a trap for the Hokage. She's in danger. I'm not sure-"

"Did you hear what I said, Shikamaru? Everyone can truly see how brightly you shine! Now leave the rest to us. We'll get the rest of your team home."

Choji and Kiba came scrambling up the embankment, sand spraying, interrupting the rest of Gai's words. Shikamaru turned, addressing the two.

"Gatsuda, you gave her to him like Naruto said? Told them she was a priority patient?"

Kiba, looking like death warmed over, nodded, looking at Choji.

Gai's features hardened looking between them. "Shikamaru, that was an order."

Shikamaru turned, looking straight into Gai's eyes.

Gai didn't soften an inch, but there was some understanding there. Not that it would make any difference if Shikamaru tried to leave.

"...at least let us wait with Satsuki."

That way they could slip out in the coming chaos. He wouldn't leave another behind, not again.


#


Forty minutes passed with the three of them sitting outside the triage tent while Gatsuda, who was a pleasant-faced giraffe-like man of about fifty years, if Shikamaru had to guess, told them the prognosis was grim.

Swelling in the brain. We'll know more when it fades. She was in a deep coma, in other words.

Satsuki wasn't dead. That was all that mattered.

He knew that he wasn't the only one who couldn't take someone else dying. One look at Kiba and the deep, dark bags under his eyes proved that. Choji, out of the three of them, seemed in the best spirits, though his face could give rock lessons in stubborn refusal to show emotion; all hard planes and angles as he was.

Choji's bouncing knee gave him away.

The evacuation was well under way with only a few boats left; now, most of the trainees safely back in Fire Country. He'd fought with Choji about leaving, then Kiba, as Shikamaru insisted they wait for Naruto.

He was coming. He was.

The crunch of gravel heralded Gai's arrival.

"It's time. We're moving the most critical out now. You're on the last boat, boat four." Gai held up a finger to cut off what Shikamaru opened his mouth to say, "That is an order. Careful with your next words."

With a last lingering look at Shikamaru, Kiba heaved himself to his feet and brushed past Gai and took the dirt path down to the beach and their ship, bobbing so placidly at the make-shift docks.

Choji started to follow. Shikamaru grabbed his arm, hissing into his ear, low enough that Gai hopefully wouldn't hear.

"...he wouldn't follow that order, Choji, if the situation was reversed. You know that as well as I do. Naruto wouldn't give a shit."

His only response was a look that made Shikamaru drop his hand.

A flaring of powerful chakra, so strong the hair on the back of his neck stood up, acted like a string attached to the heads of everyone on the beach and in the nearby vicinity: as, in synch, they all looked up at the sky.

A strange script-character, black as night, with white lines running through it, that fuzzed strangely, warping the line of the eye, separated in jerky movements, something coming through that was easily the size of one of the hydrofoils put on its nose.

"Is that… a sword?"

The massive, fuzzy symbol of black and white light seemed to struggle to maintain its structure. After a minute of watching, Shikamaru saw it die and the sky returned to what it had been before as if nothing unremarkable occurred.

Then a portal opened, a whirling gray smudge on the world, and the Hokage stepped out with Naruto tumbling ahead of her looking like he'd gone a few rounds with a woodchipper. As the boy weakly raised a hand, Shikamaru watched the heavy black tattoos fade as if they'd never existed.

Then that fucking idiot that saved all their lives weakly said, "Yo."

And sagged, limp. Probably unconscious.

Almost as one, the three of them sighed. Even Gai.

Choji chuckled.

But then there was no time for laughter or levity for that matter because Shikamaru realized the target of this whole operation was standing right in front of him.

"Lady Mikoto, this is a trap set for you. You must leave. Now!"

Shikamaru had never been much of an actor, always failing the improvisation classes in the Academy. Shinobi, as an obvious thing, had to be able to lie as if their life depended on it, had to summon emotions they weren't necessarily feeling, create a persona that lived and breathed on a dime.

He wasn't good at it- never had been.

The fear and terror that left him in a rush as he spoke to the Hokage, jumbled his words, and sounded trite to his ears were all too real. He felt it pounding in his veins and throbbing in his temples. The fear and terror that he felt facing Fugaku Uchiha, or Juzo Biwa, was nothing compared to the rush of emotion he struggled to manage as he comprehended the larger gambit: that another country was attempting to cut the head off Konohagakure, then carve her to pieces while they floundered with a decent portion of our military might, really the Hokage alone, focused in another country.

Why this Exam ever moved forward instead of battlefield promotions was beyond him.

Or… no.

That was too monstrous to contemplate.

"Shikamaru."

The Hokage, always a vast and unknowable position of power, not a real person; smiled in such a penetrating, none-to-gentle way that Shikamaru didn't, not for a second, feel reassured.

Instead he felt cold.

"I know, child. I know how this ends. Therefore… Gai! Iruka!"

Amongst the chaos around them, of shinobi running to and fro, loading the last, most vulnerable among the wounded, and packing in the remaining two triage centers, Iruka, their advisor but also the main administrator of the exam, blurred to a stop in front of their Hokage at her mere word.

Gai stood erect as if he'd never move again until she spoke.

Iruka was not much less stiff or formal.

Mikoto Uchiha reached up and took off her robes in what seemed a choreographed way, ceremonially folding them as if she had no care in the world. Then she took off her hat. Midnight tresses, unbound and flowing like seaweed in an underwater current, made her look a decade younger. Red eyes pinned Shikamaru like a bug. Sharingan eyes that spun lazily.

Underneath the formal Hokage attire, she wore slim plates of a matte black over a black bodysuit. Seven blades materialized with a wave and settled floating in a fan behind her back. She looked… invincible.

"Hear me, my Jonin, as my witnesses: I, Mikoto Sankyo Uchiha, being of sound mind and body, do hereby pass my Office of Fire Shadow to the newly-promoted Jonin Shikamaru Nara. He be of a penetrating intellect and worthy combat skill, and will yet grow into the parts he lacks. Hear and attend. Do you obey?"

From Gai, no hesitation. "I hear and obey, Fire Shadow."

There was a slight hesitation and a distinct widening of the eyes from Iruka.

"I… I hear and obey, Fire Shadow."

She hadn't looked away from Shikamaru the whole time and watched him as if she knew his every thought, but the Nara found himself out of breath and the world swam as threads of a pattern, tiny crumb trails of actions she'd taken all coalesced and hit him in one explosion of knowledge smoothing itself out into the truth.

"Good luck… Nanadaime Hokage."

And Shikamaru Nara gritted his teeth, knowing she'd given him a poisoned chalice, already marking this as a before and after period of history. The time when Konohagakure still stood and after it fell, to be wiped from the map.

Under his newfound leadership.

Shikamaru screamed and attacked the now-Former Hokage.

He didn't make it a single step.


#


Naruto Uzumaki

Naruto wasn't even sure what did it, but he jerked awake fearing he was falling off an edge. Agony slammed into him and the mother of all migraines pounded into his skull. Not even sure where he was, Naruto focused on something concrete: he was still maintaining a deathgrip on Kubikiribōchō. That anchored him enough to run through the last things he remembered, which was mainly the Hokage yanking him through a portal before those horrifying red strings carved him up as his Aegis Technique died.

"Finish boarding, there is nothing for us here."

That was her, then. Funny how she was again standing over him. That took him back a ways.

Despite the ring of command behind the words, Iruka and Gai both hesitated. Interesting. Iruka spoke for the both of them as Gai gathered up an unconscious Shikamaru and flung him unceremoniously over his shoulder.

"Lady Ho-uh, Mikoto, do you not intend to return with us? Perhaps you intend to use a space-time jutsu?"

She shook her head slowly. "My time is almost up."

What did that mean? Did I miss something?

"I'll show them a black ocean before I… go. The most I can do is put an end to those who've harmed the leaves on my tree. Blood for blood, as it always has been. Perhaps that will ease Shikamaru's rage at me. Then… I will speak with the River Daimyo."

The matriarch of the Uchiha clan, for the first time that Naruto could remember, hesitated- visibly. Then she shrugged, a gentle movement of one slim, armored shoulder. Naruto noticed she wasn't wearing her robes or her hat.

He frowned. What the-?

"This is merely an opening salvo, one I admit I was expecting. Not this, exactly, but some movement by Akatsuki was not unexpected. My ex-husband, however…and the other situations. No, those were not on the docket for today. They've underestimated me, though, if they think Fugaku will be enough."

Blearily, Naruto staggered off his back and to a somewhat stable position kneeling in front of the Hokage, so he was in a perfect position to see the flash of rage and hatred cross her face and then disappear just as quickly.

Mikoto turned around, putting her back to the small group and raised one hand, speaking without looking.

"Return to the ships. Evacuate now. That will be my final order as Hokage."

Gaping, Naruto struggled to play catch-up.

"What-?"

"Not you, Naruto. You stay."

Gai and Iruka didn't hesitate this time, gathering a stunned Choji and a numb-looking Kiba and hustling them towards the last remaining boat.

"What about your daughter-"

"I'm told she's in a critical, but stable position. Hush."

Naruto shut his mouth with a click, instead watching what she was doing, idly attempting to wipe the blood off his face. He failed, instead smearing it in a horrifying way. Seals popped in and out of existence around the Hokage, dark ones in the shape of the symbol for, 'blade.' Thousands of black blades appeared in a vast cloud of darkness over the city, pointed down and uniform in size and shape.

Gudodama, Cocoon-creatures, hopped out of hundreds of portals, onto rooftops and street corners, and as one gestured, raising hands.

More portals opened and blades poured through in shapes like roaring dragons. Tens, hundreds.

Screaming started and subsumed the previous sounds of fire and destruction, the screaming of dying civilians, a background noise that Naruto had been ignoring until the new screams sounded. The sounds of certain death.

Naruto knelt, watching Mikoto swaying, arms moving as if she was a conductor guiding her musicians through particularly intricate measures. Her face was calm, almost serene, as she butchered a thousand, ten thousand soldiers.

He froze, staying in position for what seemed like an hour, but was, at most, twenty minutes.

Looking over his shoulder was the hardest thing he'd ever done, ripping his eyes away from the most intricate hand-sealless technique involving kenjutsu he'd ever had the horrible honor of witnessing, but doing so gave him a perfect view of the ship that carried everyone he loved collide with-

Spiritual pressure that blanked his mind, so strong he felt the pull of it in his channels like the moon exerting tidal force on the oceans, appeared along with what looked, to his trained eye, like his Aegis Technique, Forged barriers of chakra that prevented the last remaining ship from leaving the area of operation. The scale of it was so large, so powerful, and so chakra-intensive that it frankly beggered the imagination.

Whipping back, Naruto witnessed another impossibility. The sky tore itself open, tore itself into an… Aegis Script, his Aegis Script, a silver-edged ring of Forged chakra.

The massive script circle split down the center and a person emerged.

A person with… wings?

Before Naruto could process it, even more Aegis scripts snapped open in the sky, facing down on him like the Blade of Damocles; hundreds, then thousands, then ten thousand, all small opening up with loud, audible snaps that sounded like death the same as Mikoto's blades falling upon civilians necks.

Light began to glow with a deep thrum as each of the fuinjutsu circles emanated a powerful silver light, glowing, glowing, brighter and brighter.

Mikoto looked as if someone stabbed her.

"What do we do?"

Naruto shook her as he looked back over his shoulder at the barrier keeping the last boat in, no, now that he looked, the barrier extended so far that it had snared the hundred boats that left a half-hour ago as they were rounding the cape, miles away, but he watched all the same as the glowing scripts and light gathered above them.

Naruto knew now that whoever this was had snagged them all in a barrier that encompassed an entire city, no, bigger than a whole city. Those scripts…

His mind wouldn't let him shy away from the truth.

Destruction and power pulsed and danced in the scripts.

Before he could scream, lances like the finger of kami itself speared down with a roar that started small but ramped up as every single one of the thousands of scripts volleyed in staggered succession.

Thum. Thum. Thum. .Thum.

Silver light started to annihilate the city, one section at a time and started racing towards them, towards the boats still stuck behind the barrier, towards the death and destruction of everything he loved.

Naruto knew he couldn't do a single thing except to watch helplessly and scream at the frozen Hokage.

"MIKOTO!"

White light began flowing out, then burst into a flood, pouring out in a continuous, destructive wave, shooting down like comets or spears of light, devastating half the city in rapid bursts of howling noise, then it was close.

Closer.

Almost on them.

Naruto watched Mikoto look between her people on the boats, her daughter, in the hydrofoil behind them, the lone boat, and to Naruto. Agony and naked emotion stripped her bare and Naruto found he couldn't bear to look at her.

Not like this.

He knew what she was thinking. Calm stole over him. Death wasn't the worst thing, after all. One of her creatures popped into existence next to her, reaching for him. He backed away.

"I'm asking you, please, save Satsuki. You're her mother. After all you've done… do this thing. She idolized you-"

Mikoto breaks, for just an instant. Naruto sees the real Mikoto.

"Naruto- she was my best friend, your mother. I did all this for you. There is so much you don't know about why the world is this way… I did this for YOU! So you could-"

She gripped his shoulders in a vice. Her voice and eyes were feverish, Sharingan eyes spinning so fast he got dizzy if he stared too long.

"The world can't continue like this- you… you can change it! Only you!"

Naruto scoffed.

Me?

Naruto shakes his head, choking back tears.

"I can't do anything but die. It's all I've ever been able to do. But at least save Satsuki for me- I've never been much good at saving people, but you can. You can!"

She hesitates. She watches him and Naruto stared into her eyes. He was staring so hard he could see when her face closed up.

The creature vanished with a pop. Naruto felt more than heard part of the barrier behind them shattering, but didn't dare look and hope.

The light approached like a tsunami, swallowing the city whole like some gargantuan beast of light, swallowing everything, the buildings, then the beach, the tower, the plazas: then Mikoto screamed and Naruto felt it as a physical thing, chakra and rage and Will blasting out of her in a last stand.

Black blades the size of oak trees sprouted like a forest around them and Naruto waited, despite all that, for the silvery death. Mikoto was a mere red-eyed demon in the darkness created by the forest of blades. Then silver light shone down and made a corruscating labyrinth of white and black shapes within the forest.

Blooming from the Hokage like the shinigami itself, a skeletal shape of sheer darkness, a black that ate everything, even the light around it, emerged from Mikoto's right eye and covered them both in a shadowy ribcage of armor, rising to meet the silver light of heavenly destruction.

Mikoto grabbed him, throwing him to the ground and stood over him, a black knight shielding the innocent. Naruto had the urge to laugh until he threw up at the irony.

A silhouette of silver light threw her calm, peaceful face into stark relief.

Until she began to scream. Then Kaguya began to scream.

So, too, did he. Throat ripping itself to shreds as pain lanced through every pore of his body. The armored figure around the Hokage peeled away piece by piece, slowly, but it happened.

Desperate, Naruto scrambled every piece of dreg of chakra into something resembling the Mantle of the Sword Sage as white mixed with black around him… and detonated.


#


/Royal Palace of Sanarthenyo

/Hoseki City

/Land of Fire

Madara Uchiha/Worldmind Zetsu

Earth techniques were, as a matter of course, not techniques that benefited from finesse or a high-level of skill in usage.

Except, of course, when using something like the Mayfly technique.

Then it mattered a great deal.

Traveling at high-speeds through organic matter like tree roots, or for instance, the water lines that made up the Royal Palace of Sanarthenyo, directly in the center of the Land of Fire's seat of power, Hoseki City. Water rushed past him as he let the Zetsu-half of himself guide them with a skill and precision he did not yet possess in the Mayfly technique.

From his relocation of the palace map his spies procured for him, he knew the Daimyo's chambers, a collection of opulent apartment rooms that housed his entire extended family with room to spare, was just ahead, guarded by mundane sacks of flesh and a few other flies that needed to be swatted off the shit that was his prize.

He couldn't suppress the giggles that sometimes took him unawares.

In their shared headspace, Zetsu took little notice. That hadn't always been the case, as Madara Uchiha could certainly remember a time that his…partner chafed at the toll time took on his mind. There was, of course, nothing wrong with him, per se. He just needed to let off steam once in a while, as Hashirama always told him he needed.

Better too little, than too late, eh Hashirama?

That set him off again, in a fit of laughs that broke out of his mouth as The Conqueror emerged from his Mayfly technique right into-

Cold anger snapped his mind into a sharp blade.

They'd risen like a ghoul from a grave directly into the middle of a corridor full of soldiers.

His body moved on auto-pilot, gliding between the elite, mute sacks of flesh, strangely skilled, and took no hits as forty-six men died in as many seconds.

Flicking the blood off his kunai in a perfect C-shape, he sheathed it at his belt through sheer force of habit.

"I expect such sloppiness from Nagato, but not you Zetsu."

He forced down a giggle, all business.

"Do that again and I'll kill you. Nothing- not even the possibility of discovery by mundane soldiers- will be tolerated. Even if they were less than an inconvenience. That is not the point. Do you understand?"

"I understand perfectly. I understand you've forgotten, Madara. My apologies."

"I don't question your dedication, only your methods-"

"Understood."

"Let us hope we can avoid the notice of-"

What Zetsu said registered, but as his sole remaining eye widened unimaginable pain wracked his whole body as the parasitic darkness attempted to initiate separation, which would, of course, kill the long-past-his-expiration-date Uchiha.

"I understand! I understand!"

"So you do? I was beginning to wonder, with that attitude, if you'd truly forgotten. I mean, how could you forget I saved your miserable life?"

There were six forms that melted out of the shadows and stood arrayed before the final entrance to the Daimyo's chambers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one step out from behind a pillar, at his six o'clock. He was stuck, kneeling now, having dropped from the bone-deep, mind-deep knowledge that he was Zetsu's-and not the other way around.

Madara Uchiha looked down at his hands; one stark black, the other the pale whiteness of a long-dead body, and clenched his fists.

You live at my sufferance, Uchiha.

More sacrifices.

No matter. Worth the prize.

"Pieces are in place, gentleman- and lady, my apologies."

Silence met his proclamation, but bodies tensed when he smiled in response, slowly standing, unfolding to his six foot seven frame. He'd grown some to accommodate the parasite.

Time to light the match.

"Step aside and you can join me in building a new world- one with no more suffering. What do you say?"

Without a word, they attacked as one. He felt the chakra building, techniques coming at him from all sides now.

He met them all.

Palms open, dark diamonds shining with a hungry red and black light, The Conqueror ate.


#


Second Guardian Chiriku

Pulling his gore-covered fist back from where it was buried up to his wrist inside Kazuma's chest, the leader of the now-failed coup d'etat slid to the ground making the wet slooping noise of a noodle-dish with too much water and not enough noodle. The ninja monk and member of the Twelve Guardians responsible for the safety of the royal family, looked into the rapidly-darkening eyes of the piece of shit who dared harm a charge under his protection and asked him a simple question while he still drew breath. The most important question he ever asked in his life.

"Why?"

Yet the light in his once-friends eyes was long gone.

The soft cries of Naho, the daimyo's only child, came to him from nearby. Settling his robes around him, adjusting his sash which reminded him, as it always did, of his responsibility to the safety of the family, he realized this was far more serious than even the Daimyo suspected if Kazuma, the Head of the Twelve Guardians, was in on it. To make a brother betray another was no mean feat, and not a whim.

There was a long, piercing scream that cut the crying off and echoed through Naho's room, the apartment where he'd confronted his boss for the first and last time.

Rushing to Naho's side, a slip of a girl of almost seven summers clad in only her night robe and a short shift, he gathered her unprotesting, shuddering form in his arms and chakra blasted through his tenketsu as he narrowly avoided the door that blew outward off its hinges as a torrent of almost-solid fire engulfed everything in a twenty-foot line.

Then a huge, muttering figure strode through the still-flaming, smoldering wreckage of the wall that separated the antechamber from the child's bedroom. The man's hands were waving back and forth as if arguing with an invisible person. Chakra suffused the room, an aura as malicious and evil as a bijuu's.

His odds of escaping with Naho just dropped like the temperature in Iron Country during the winter months.

"I need to find it, to find the LOCK, the DOOR; the girl, where did he hide her? I've searched and searched through Temple after Temple and yet, oh yet, the answer is here, written inside the Daimyo… time to peel him open and pry his secrets out of him! They've been hiding it from me and I don't appreciate it. No, no I don't. Little Nagato is getting her location for me using his puppets. While I… I need to find the real prize. THE DOOR."

He seemed to notice Chiriku for the first time.

Chiriku went cold as he processed the, 'temple after temple.'

No, what…? There were only nine temples that anyone could mean when they said the word. Chiriku was a child of the Fire Temple monks and he'd been trying to contact them for sometime, never receiving clearance to leave and see his brothers, but of course, that clearance came from Kazuma.

Behind him, Chiriku saw the bodies of seven of his twelve comrades-in-arms, carved into pieces and left like discarded trash. The bloody weapon still held loosely in the hands of the odd creature in front of him.

Fear, a pulse of adrenaline that he stopped feeling a long time ago, reminded him of his mortality as he stared into the long-maned and mismatched-looking face of the man who called himself The Conqueror. For this could be no other man, if man he was. One yellow eye and one dark stared at him from a sinuous black-and-white dividing line bifurcating a once handsome face, a face of almost perfect symmetry. Over his shoulder peeked the hilt of a massive fan; heavy and folded. An army arrangement fan. A Gunbai.

Arms still clutched around Naho, Chiriku stood perfectly still. He felt the muscles of the girl spasming, keeping quiet as she'd been trained to during situations like this.

No training would ever prepare a person, really, for meeting a man like this.

"Well, man, spit it out! Where is Genjo?"

Attempting to smooth his face out, Chiriku stood from his crouch and pulled Naho behind him surreptitiously, shrouding her with his robes.

"Daimyo Fumakamo is out touring the Perfumed Quarter, seeking his usual donor's support."

The man opened his mouth and it took Chiriku a moment to realize the horrifying maw was his attempt at a smile, but with two separate mouths it became a nightmare parody.

"Please don't insult my intelligence, young one. You think that the Twelve Guardians would be anywhere other than right next to their charges? Try again. Please don't lie to me again."

From everywhere at once, a pressure- not chakra, he knew that immediately- seemed to squeeze his brain. Chiriku cried out. The man had moved so fast Chiriku's brain couldn't process it and The Conqueror's mismatched hands were flat against the sides of his skull as if he was clapping his hands together in prayer.

Chiriku couldn't think, couldn't breathe.

He felt his jaw fracture and a blood vessel pop in his eye.

"Go Chiriku! Go!"

Naho screamed, the pressure vanished and Chiriku barely saw, in between huge intakes of air that didn't help the debilitating migraine and blinding pain. Instinct saw him take advantage of the fact that the Daimyo had thrown himself at The Conqueror.

Chiriku tracked the man he loved with all his heart with his eyes and sped through hand seals faster than he'd ever done anything in his life, finishing just in time.

Giant fists of invisible air punched down above the Conqueror with the pressure of a category five tornado.

The scene flickered.

The Daimyo, Genjo, trained daily with shinobi of a non-insignificant caliber, Jonin-level was the minimum requirement to be admitted to the Twelve Guardians after all, and so he was not unskilled. Far from it.

Yet Chiriku's technique and the picture-perfect ambush strike of the Daimyo…

Just melted like a snowball hitting a roaring bonfire.

The scene flickered again.

The Seifukusha was well named. Most people hyphenated the -sha, but it could have different meanings; obey, discharge, rein in the rebellious. Yet together… together it meant Conqueror. A title fit for one such as this; Chiriku had never before met anyone that he was afraid of. Terror suffused him like chakra, seeped into his marrow, and he felt what it must be like to have the heart of a hummingbird thumping a million beats in a minute. No one could just eat chakra like that. No one!

So Chiriku ran, slinging Naho onto his back.

Running was all he could do. All they could except die.

Blood ran in rivulets as The Conqueror let him go, into on the man he'd flipped with one hand and broken his back, cratering him into the ground. The screaming began as he covered Naho's eyes and ears as best he could, so she wouldn't see the guardians she grew up with, the people Chiriku loved, dead and in so many pieces; Guardian Nauma, who loved to laugh and always picked the flowers Naho loved best, Guardian Tou, Guardian Kitane, and Seito… and all the rest. Maybe some were alive, Chiriku wasn't stopping to check. Konohagakure was the only place they would be safe, if safety was something that even existed anymore, and Chiriku swore he would die before Naho if it came to that.

Bursting past the Royal Guards who were heading to their deaths, Chiriku didn't acknowledge anything, not the requests for information, nor the injured attendants, nor the startled gasps at the blood all over his body, instead putting his head down sprinting at full speed for the gates. Naho had already passed out in his arms.

Anything to be away.

Anything.

If anyone had a chance against that god walking, it would be the Hokage.


#


Madara Uchiha/Worldmind Zetsu

The thing that was still Madara Uchiha tracked the ninja monk leaving with his senses and decided that, while the child was excellent leverage against the man in his grip, he had other methods of dragging the truth out- what was his name?

Ah, Genjo.

A giggle escaped before he could squash them. There was too much of Zetsu in him for his liking, but it could not be helped. He was attached to this creature for good or ill now, hitched to the same wagon, as his friend Hashirama used to say.

Strange to think of him now, after all this time

Catching his mind wandering again, eyes drifting around the opulent, though now scorched room, he ignored the sounds of guards rushing toward him.

"Genjo. I walked into Iron Country and murdered the Shogun in cold blood. I wiped the Hidden Cloud off the face of the map with one technique. I walked into Hidden Mist and slaughtered the Mizukage, took his country, killed his Daimyo, and installed a new puppet that answers to me and me alone."

With each word, he knew his Sharingan spun a little faster and a little faster. Each word flayed him with promises broken; Hashirama would be so disappointed. But as he always replied, 'I ask forgiveness, not permission, Senju.'

Looking out on an uncomprehending, but grateful world as he assumed his place in the Pure Land, at the end, his final rest, would be worth it.

"Genjo, do you know how to unite a continent?"

The man, for all his death stared him in the face, was remarkably stoic. Yet the non-sequitur caught him completely off-guard.

"I will not- huh?"

Madara smiled.

"You release a lion, yes? Then you watch as it wreaks havoc, causes panic, everyone's lives upended and scattered like petals on the wind. Don't you see? No, no, of course you wouldn't. See, Hashirama caged the lions the Sage released in order to create peace. But me? No, I want unity. But you can't just tell people they need unity, you can't force people together: they have to want it. To need it. Yes?"

Madara savored the incomprehension in this flesh sack. No power, no real power, but the man thought he understood. He understood nothing.

"Where is the girl?"

Genjo didn't even try to fake misunderstanding the question. The Daimyo knew they were not talking about his daughter.

"She… she's elsewhere."

"Don't split hairs. I know she's elsewhere. But WHERE elsewhere, hm?"

"I already gave you everything you wanted! I don't understand why you're here… the deal with Hidden Rain-!"

A surging upswell of emotion-one he'd thought he'd lost long ago-almost made his clench spasmodically around the Daimyo's throat. That would've killed the man. Ruining his own plans from carelessness was not something he wanted to be in the habit of doing, not anymore.

He hadn't known Pein made a deal with the Fire Daimyo… that was interesting.

Very interesting.

Especially since he'd set up a whole plan to give Pein the same information, though in a roundabout way, using the repository in River Country.

"What was the name?"

"Aren't you working with- why are you-"

Perhaps some part of the Daimyo wasn't as brave as the others because something settled, resolved, in Madara and he was done playing around.

"The name, Genjo. Now. I can reach your daughter," he made a motion with his arm, as if reaching out to pluck a dandelion off it's stem. Then clenched his hand, keeping eye contact with the Daimyo."

He seemed to get the hint. There was no threat in his voice, just a promise.

"A-Asuka Genmei. She's in the West."

The Girl with the Eyes. Asuka Genmei- long lost daughter of the last Emperor, a bloodline lost to time? No, not anymore apparently. Never lost, despite what Hashirama claimed. What was the Door then? If she is the Key, holds the eyes, then the Lock/Door must be in the West as well?

Zetsu answered swiftly. His own stake in this was something that Madara hadn't yet puzzled out.

Yes. That seems to make the most sense. If Nagato is after the same prize we are, and that seems likely, then he knows the same information you do- more if he went to the repository. I told you, you should've done this yourself.

Phaw. You always say we should do things ourselves.

Your 'allies' are unreliable.

Madara chuckled bitterly at that. He knew how true that was.

Idly he noted the vaunted Royal Guard filling the stadium-sized audience chamber outside the royal apartments. They watched him quietly, in a formation of bristling points, forming a wall between him and the exit.

We will need to use that weasel Danzo after all.

Yes. It seems so. I've kept an eye on him and he's done a good job at the task we set him so long ago. He's been… well, I hesitate to say 'the best' ally, but he's certainly the most persistent and successful. That has to count for something, no?

The Eye, the Lock, and Key, will be mine once again… and then…

The Conqueror wove a genjutsu around him in a spiraling fractal pattern, infinitely complex and utterly wasted on these sacks of pitiful, wasted chakra and flesh.

Unbeknownst to him, though, lost in his own thoughts as he was, he spoke out loud. Laughing. Laughing. Laughing.

"Then I will subdue this world and create a utopia that won't end in more Izuna's or Yahiko's. I/we/I do this for peace! A REAL peace, not some half-baked idealist bullshit like Hashirama always spouted."

Zetsu is laughing, but Madara ignores it.

Zetsu thought, in the comfort of his own, well-protected mind-space, an uncomfortable necessity now that he was acting as a Worldmind for this… human. The Matriarch will reward me for delivering her the world-prize of her rivals. I've been trapped on this rock for so long, playing such a long, fraught con… that I doubt those two Judges even remember I'm here! She'll overlook the…problems… with her daughter. I'm sure of it!

They cackled in unison. For very different reasons.

Royal guards rushed forward to the long, menacing shrouded figure in the center of the audience chamber, falling on it in a wave of righteous bloodthirstiness. Madara savored the sweaty, panic-stricken looks on the guards faces as their spears stabbed home, over and over again, terror giving their attacks a sloppiness they weren't normally known for, the wet thunk of broad-bladed points sliding through organ, hitting bone, retracting in a cycle that lasted only a few moments.

When a leader, a man with a crest on his gilded helmet in the shape of a phoenix, held up a fist, they beheld their beloved Daimyo, still glad in his sleeping robes, with hundreds of fatal stab wounds.

His vacant, horrified eyes stared out accusingly at his own men and women.

The Royal Guards killed their Daimyo.

No sign of The Conqueror, the man they'd come to die to stop.

The howls of knowledge, the knowledge of men and women damned by their own hands, preceded the unsheathing of hand-held blades. The mass suicide, hundreds of lives being taken in honor-bound acts of regret, made Uchiha Madara squirm with pleasure, breaking the The men were trained in recognizing genjutsu… but Uchiha Madara was no ordinary foe. The Mayfly technique took him away, using the trees that arched across the exits welcoming petitioners in, and he couldn't stop the smile on his face.

Despite the setbacks and the revelation of betrayal by a close-

"What do you call a friend that's an enemy?"

I believe the current nomenclature is, 'frenemy.'

"Yes, betrayal by a frenemy, this was a good day, Zetsu. A good day."

True to his words, Madara Uchiha stood over the body that was once the most powerful man in Fire Country. Smiling, he took his kunai out and proceeded to carve open the body for the secrets that resided in his very entrails, coded into his blood and viscera the secret to the whereabouts of a long-list Empire.

He found himself humming while working and giggled.

How absurd.


#


/Operation WHEELHOUSE Extraction Point

/Genbu City

/River Country

Naruto

There were moments in life where distractions, extraneous thoughts and feelings, fled in favor of a crystal kind of clarity: moments hanging in a perfect, frozen state. Life and death were usually the only time when humanity experienced that kind of razor-edge. Naruto heard through the grapevine that every moment of an Uchiha's life where the Sharingan was active felt like that. Satsuki confirmed it. That was why, as she said, she didn't like using it in combat, especially against friends. Every moment with a Sharingan was an edged snapshot of the most stressful times in a person's life. A clear reproduction painting of the most harrowing moments one can experience.

For Naruto, he would never forget waking from a blurry unconscious to the sight of Mikoto Uchiha crucified on her own blades, three quarters of her body, half her once-flawless face burnt to a bubbling crisp, clothes hanging off her in ways that didn't conceal anything, instead enhancing the feeling of watching something monumental defaced and desecrated.

He was so numb, so horrified, that his only thought was to cry.

She'd shielded him from the worst of the silver-light, but it was a near thing, and she'd done so with her very body, sprouting swords from her skin to anchor her, by the looks of it.

Grains of sand dug into his back, hot and unyielding, like iron brands. Naruto could not look away from the tragedy; the Hokage was… invincible. To see her so wrecked, so naked and vulnerable, so broken.

Something broke in response at the sight.

The Conqueror didn't dare fight her in Iron Country, opting to wait till she'd left in order to enact his plan. Whether he thought her a genuine threat, or enough of one that he didn't want to risk it, Naruto wasn't sure.

But whoever was in the sky, that could fly, could erect barriers that crossed cities, that could conjure pure Forged Aegis Scripts miles wide, had to be a Rune Wright, as Kaguya told him, like himself.

A god-like one at that.

Where Naruto stumbled, searching around a dark room for the light switch, this man… this God wielded it with skill and power far beyond this world. Kaguya's emotions went wild when she saw him, and saw what he did. She resembled nothing more than a frightened rabbit hiding under a log from the eagle circling high above.

Kaguya was no longer the trump card he believed her to be.

If even she was scared…

Mikoto coughed, dark blood that looked almost scorched, flecked her lips. If he wasn't so numb already the blood-red eye that slowly opened and pinned him would have terrified him in its intensity. She looked for all the world like a corpse reanimating just to deliver a message, like in some of the old stories.

"Nar-uto."

They were a foot apart and as Naruto looked around from his position flat on his back in a body-shaped divot of sand, he realized the surface of the beach for a hundred paces around them, what wasn't covered in black blades, that is, was fine glass glowing with heat.

That was when he realized his right arm was missing from the elbow down. He could still feel it, which was the strangest realization of all.

Tied with the fact life still flowed through his body, too.

Naruto began to laugh.

Mikoto's hand, not having lost seemingly any strength despite being pinned like a bug in a collectors tin, shot out and gripped his neck. Firm, but not choking him.

"Ghack!"

He couldn't move an inch, could only lay, uncaring, staring at yet another person who cared about him dying so he could live.

Up close, she was worse. Much worse to look at.

The majority of her body was blackened and oozing, her armor and cloth melted into her in parts, her left eye melted in its socket, bone showing through.

"Nar-uto. I'm prepared for m-my death. Longed for it. I deserve it. Konohagakure cannot be saved as it is now. A necessary sacrifice. Always has been. None of the previous Hokage, save your father, understood the true danger of our fractious conflicts.

His mind frayed under the confusing weight of plans he didn't understand. He just said what came to mind, unconcerned with how it sounded or how she'd receive it. She was dead walking. Naruto barked a dark laugh. She'd never walk again.

Then again, he was dead too, wasn't he? Pein wouldn't leave an enemy alive and he could surely sense him laying here.

"So- what, you dangled Konohagakure as a prize to be snapped up? What about the enemies on all sides closing in? What was it all for?"

He waited as she spasmed, coughing, blood spraying and hissing on the still-hot sand around them.

"In order," coughing interrupted her again, "in order to build something fresh, you have to cut away the dross; melt the impurities to forge again. No one but your father ever understood that. I think, too, so does the young Nara."

She smiled through bloody, broken teeth.

"...your new, Hokage."

Naruto wasn't numb enough not to goggle at that.

Shikamaru… the new Hokage?

Amongst the other revelations, that one was low on his list. Naruto had asked, time and time again, notably after seeing the opium dens and human trafficking in the capitol, the child soldiers that every country, every nation produced to fight their meaningless wars, why wasn't the Hokage or Daimyo doing anything about all this injustice? This pointless cyclical suffering? Didn't they see how fucked up it was? Iron County trained young, yes, but they didn't allow anyone below eighteen winters to really fight.

Mikoto was grabbing him with strength he couldn't break, no chakra left to do anything but sag limply in her grasp. Her eyes searched him and found what they were looking for as she hissed triumphantly.

"You know. You know as well as I do that the world cannot be saved as is, but must be built anew on a foundation more solid than nations formed on our children and their sacrifices. Chakra is the altar we pray at, the wafer and the drink that touches our lips. I will not be part of this system any longer."

Coughing punctuated her words. Then she wheezed, the light in her eyes dimming, but not out yet.

Naruto was amazed she was still alive.

Mesmerized by the slow whirl of her Sharingan, he listened, fixated.

"...Because they couldn't fix anything that they themselves were a part of. The Shadows were locked onto a wheel of suffering that wouldn't stop because it was made to be that way by the powerful. So the powerful needed to choose to break it. Who, with power, would choose to break a system that benefited them?"

She laughed, a high wild cackle.

"What better way than someone who stole power and was already dying?"

The truth. Mikoto had been dying? Who did she steal power from?

"So that's why you didn't care that Konohagakure was surrounded by enemies. You wouldn't live long enough to have to do something about it."

The Uzumaki goggled at how much of a monster she truly was. Reluctantly impressed with how far she'd gone.

How far would you have gone for your family, friends, for Kazan- if you'd known?

"What do I do now?"

Words unbidden, but honest, came out before he could stop them.

"My eye- take it. I… I had meant to give you both, but-" A bitter smile crossed her ruined lips. "My disease took care of that a while ago. I'm glad I died when I did so at least one is usable."

Cough. Blood. So much blood.

"...one will have to suffice. You already wear the Crown, even if it isn't totally complete, as you are stuck in a half-complete stage between First Seed and World Bloom."

Kaguya, a distant huddled shape in his mind now, murmured at those words.

"...take my legacy, and carry on with my work. The Eye will allow you to view the Prophecies and the vast majority of the work that I've done to date on breaking the cycle. The rest will come. I have a drawer in my house marked with a seal only you will be able to break. All will be revealed."

He refused before all the words were out of her mouth.

"No, I'm not taking the Sharingan. I've never needed it, nor do I want it."

"You fool. This isn't about swapping eyes like some new piece of clothing. Listen," her voice took on a tone as if she was reciting some rote piece of information, something she'd said a thousand times before, "There is a precedent in the annals of history regarding the gaining of power, knowledge and wisdom through the loss of an eye."

She held up a finger, or tried to, it merely twitched, as he was about to interrupt her. He subsided still.

"...the symbolism has more power than anyone save the Uchiha and the Hyuga understand. To gain much, you must lose much. This, unfortunately, is the sacred alchemy inherent in the usage of chakra. Sacrifice and balance. More than anything… this will help you read text that is encoded in a way only the Uchiha can read. I always thought the Senju had a version of our records, but I could never find where they hid it."

The last bit was idle, drifting thought. He could tell she was fading. Naruto didn't need a diagnostic jutsu for that.

"...Jiraiya knows what I planned, though he disapproves. He will help you. I know it. A few others as well. Find the Key, Seek the Locked Door, before the rest. Then close them all out. It will probably all be ashes on our side, but at least it will be OURS again. To rebuild or damn- as we choose."

Naruto needed to really find someone who knew what the fuck was going on and wanted to tell him before they died.

A minute passed, her eyes closed and he thought she'd died. But he could hear her troubled breathing still. Reaching out, he used a bare trickle of his chakra and-

-then realized his arm was gone. As was the Control Seal.

"Fuck."

He stayed quiet, levering himself up awkwardly and scooted a little. The beach was quiet for a time. Nothing but the wind.

"Did you… did you save Satsuki?"

She nodded, eye opening again.

"I wasn't a good mother. Tell her… tell her that one day I hope she'll at least understand. I don't expect forgiveness. I killed… I killed my own son. Murdered my family. I am what people say I am and I will not apologize for doing what I knew I must."

She coughed blood.

Naruto watched as agony seized her, swords pulling and tearing muscles and organs. She looked like a fairytale wraith of blood and a patchwork of melted flesh.

Mikoto panted as if she sprinted away from death, death that was hot on her heels. Her voice was strong, frantic now.

"Take it. Take it while I'm alive so I can die with satisfaction!"

Naruto was quiet. "You're a monster."

"You're just as much of a monster as I am! You live and die by the sword, Naruto- you kill and kill and kill. Why do you think I knew the prophecy talked about you? It was never Madara Uchiha that we sought."

Naruto tried to scoot back, he hit a wide, midnight blade.

"I won't…I don't accept it. I'm not, I'm not like you-"

But he was, wasn't he? She was right.

Mikoto was pulling herself off the tangled, bladed crucifix with a sick, tearing sound through pure physical power, eyes feverish and locked on his, crawling towards him with every subsequent word. She didn't have far to go and he was too weak to fight her, even crippled as she was.

"Aren't you? You did whatever you could to survive- no option too low, no option too outlandish. You pushed and pushed until the world broke before you and gave you what you wanted. The price? The price was the people around you. You understand that don't you?"

She held him down still, but this time it became a titanic weight that froze his whole body.

How was she…!?

Struggling, but knowing it was futile, he screamed one long euliating cry and it kept going and going as Mikoto, poised over him in a lover's embrace, started carving into her own eye socket while he watched. Blood and viscera well up around her sharp, red-nailed fingers, oddly unbroken and pristine through all of this.

Then her fingers start digging into his eye socket too.

One violet eye for one black- no!

This isn't what I want!

Kaguya wavers, as traumatized as he, but for other reasons, debated helping him out, then realized he'd gain far more from this than he'll lose.

Naruto, still tearing his throat from screaming at the pain of her fingers snipping his ocular nerve, scrabbling around his eye cavity, it felt like she was tearing away a piece of who he was and called out to Kaguya, who didn't answer him.

She closed him out.

Mikoto, feverish and dying, didn't make a single sound. The pain isn't anything compared to what he's already suffered, but it was close to the most he'd ever suffered and he didn't beat himself up for screaming.

Yet, watching her ruined yet somehow still beautiful face, as she placed the Sharingan, her sole remaining one in a now-blind face solely by feel, made the pain spike. That was when the true pain started.

Naruto barely felt it as she rummaged through his pouches for bandages and gauze and an ointment, felt nothing as she healed him, covering the bandage with a seal across his eye to keep it preserved, felt nothing as she died, slumped on his chest, no, his whole world was the pain that built and built in this head until he lost himself completely, beyond screaming now.

On autopilot, mouth open in a rictus snarl, Naruto scrabbled on the ground for something, anything, and found purchase on a shard of black blade. Stabbing, over and over again, he felt muscles in his back and arms tear as he stabbed the woman on top of him once, twice, a hundred times till he couldn't move a muscle, even to try to throw her off.

Somewhere between the ninety-ninth stab and the hundred, Naruto lost consciousness, her last words breathed into his ear, stuck in his head like a prayer nobody would answer.

"Sasuke…I'm sorry."


#


Naruto awoke to a thousand things flitting through his mind. Agony so intense, like brutally hot knives sliding through nerve endings, rubbing, slicing, to the uncomfortable pull, like a candle beside the sun next to the pain, of dried blood and a white milky liquid seeping down his face, hardening, he awoke because his friends weren't safe yet.

The devastation around him was complete.

The ruins of my life.

That monster—was she a monster?—was dead under a cairn made of matte-black blades.

Ripping himself out of her cold, hard, dead hands he attempted to move, to crawl, to do anything but lay there with her. Satsuki was alive. That was something, right?

Right.

Kneeling, panting, falling, Naruto struggled to move forward, his body actively begged him to rest, to stop, to give up, but he forced it, physically using his left hand to pull his legs.

Walk, stumble, crawl- he didn't care how, but he wanted away.

Rolling over, he ended up on his back, panting, lungs burning from the smoke, dust, and the exertion, the Aegis Technique, a more complete version, was still painted across the sky. As he watched the solitary winged figure, still hovering so distant, the technique of Forged chakra closed around him.

…and a smaller one opened nearby. Naruto knew his luck had run out.

Strong enough to kill a whole city and a Kage seemingly effortlessly.

Could even Hashirama have done something like that?

The God of Ame, Pein.

Only an Uzumaki can use the Aegis Technique like that; so fully, effortlessly, no doubt about that.

The knowledge crushed him.

He found family and they were hell-bent on murdering everyone and everything.

Naruto caught his first glimpse of the man called Pein: one bare, tattooed foot came down onto nothing but air, Naruto watched upside down as the God Pein floated forward.

Rune Wright though he may be, Naruto's mind almost imploded under the sheer weight and infinite enormity of the symbologies etched onto every inch of this God. Quickly, a flash of purple symbologies that faded in and out, changing, whirling, moving through complex script and fuin that Naruto's mind cataloged and fatigued him even as it sought to reveal and comprehend on his behalf. He felt he'd die if he attempted to continue looking.

So he tore his eyes away and looked at the rest of the man.

Bright orange rags, like a worn prisoner jumpsuit was pushed down around his waist, the only form of clothing he wore, aside from the straightest, reddest hair he'd ever seen. Like every time before, the color red had just been an imitation of this one ideal. Pein, or this Uzumaki, for Uzumaki he must be, even if Naruto didn't want to acknowledge the truth, was covered in darkly glowing, burning script and fuinjutsu that made his pale skin, like that of a fresh corpse pulled from a river seem lighter.

Even his face was seemingly tattooed with the glowing symbols.

Not even an inch was left untouched, even down to the tips of his toes.

If Pein's eyes contained mind-numbing solipsisms, the six gargantuan wings spread fully to either side, three on each: top, middle, and bottom seemed Forged from delicate opaque glass script and made the man's eyes look like simple script by comparison.

Kaguya suddenly invaded him, mind and body, hissing.

Chakra filled him, a foreign, strange energy. Not his. Hers.

The Kojiki-! MINE!

A psychic scream of rage, so passionate and full of chakra he felt his ears start to bleed, deafening his Sensor abilities.

So startled as he was, Naruto barely reacted when Kaguya attempted to shove him into his soul space, to manifest, to take direct control of him. Blanching, he let her- unsure of how to fight her, weak as he was. Yet Pein stood there, watching this flickering reality around the half-dead, one-armed Naruto; first Kaguya, pristine goddess, then back to him.

Naruto felt when she gathered herself into a spiritual point, a spear of Will and Authority, and attacked with more force and chakra than he had in his entire, fully-stocked disposal.

She wanted to take full control of those wings.

Pein barely batted an eye.

He brushed aside her hasty, but expert attack as if it was nothing.

Shock flooded him/her, his mind confused with the contact. With a word, a tiny Forged Aegis of silver light etched on air with a blurring fingertip, Pein banished her so far into the depths of his subconscious that Naruto could no longer even sense her.

Then it was just him and the angel of death with wings that weren't wings at all, but a weapon, a tool that made him somehow more.

Not an Angel, no, but a God of Death, as it were.

Naruto, back in control, rasped out a laugh, trying to conceal how shaken he was by Kaguya's sudden apparent reversal of loyalty and actions that seemed as if she was trying to get him killed.

Sitting up, ignoring Pein, as much as he was able to ignore the person he knew would kill him, he looked out across the devastated city. You could barely tell that a city once stood proud and tall, vibrant and full of life. The Communication Tower completely gone, Genbu City was now a flat, rocky graveyard; a monument to remind those who lived what happened when you angered the One True God.

How could they possibly fight someone like him?

He was so far above everyone, even The Conqueror, that he would glide across the world and rule everything.

Naruto closed his eyes, waiting to die.

"I don't want to fight you, but I will if you seek it. You've only just found the path you're feet were meant to tread."

The voice, smooth and younger than he expected, held a longing Naruto found confusing. He was… Naruto hesitated. Regretful?

Why would that be?

Powerful fingers seized his head, jarring his bandages and sending what felt like a flaming dagger through his skull.

"My apologies, there is no gentle way to do this. And forgive me, you've already borne so much."

Colors of a million hues seemed to suck him in through a tunnel of striations that blazed with the intensity of a sun. The city was gone suddenly, the dead Mikoto was gone, the glassed beach where a demonstration of power beyond anything he'd ever known left him in a pit of despair he wasn't sure he could climb out of, that was gone too, and now he was standing, aches and pains gone-even the throbbing of his ruined and replaced eye didn't exist here-next to the God called Pein, wings folded, as they peered down together on a place that defied description.

A ball, floating unsuspended in an infinite darkness, a smattering of twinkling lights around it the only clue to Naruto that he was, and it stretched his mind to even think so, that he was somehow in the heavens themselves.

A dark shape, impossibly vast and sinuous, blotted out the majority of the lights, traveling behind the ball even as he and Pein watched quietly. The God next to him seemed tense, like a rabbit ready to bolt at the first sign of the fox.

"That," one pale finger extended and took in the floating ball, "is a planet, just like ours. I believe," he cocked his head then nodded, "that the Sentinel there refers to it as Adagio-1. A border-world."

Naruto, too in shock to do ought than listen and absorb, processed the term Sentinel then spotted a figure, glittering in a trail of multi-colored smoke rings, that blasted by them at a speed he could barely process.

Bursting with questions, but knowing he was living on the sufferance of this man, Naruto chose carefully.

"Why are you showing me any of this? Why are we here… why am I-?"

"Alive?"

Naruto swallowed and nodded.

"Because it's going to come down to you or I, in the end, I think. And I need you to understand why I do what I do. Watch."

Pein seemed to pause, reaching for Naruto who flinched.

The man smiled, but there was more sadness in it than joy.

"I ask only for forgiveness, not permission."

Then tore off the patch, seal and all, and exposed what Naruto knew was still a non-functioning Sharingan to the world.

Colors whirled and his vision spread, sharpening in a way that was difficult to describe. He felt as though what he was seeing was burning itself into his memory, never to be forgotten again. A part of him more thoroughly than the faint and fading memories of his childhood.

Now he saw what the sinuous shape was as light flooded his Sharingan, clarity exploding into sharpness: a snake, no, a-

"A dragon, yes. Watch."

Equal to maybe five or six of the planets, the dragon his mind supplied, slithered through the darkness and seemed to commence an attack that battered at enormous purple-tinged hexagonal shields that sprang up around Adagio-1 with each hit.

Yet each hit left them looking a little whiter.

Left with even more questions, Naruto could only do as he was told and watch as the shields failed, the… Sentinel inside Forged a spear that Naruto could feel from here, it's power a beacon of impossibility, a solid representation of tearing, ripping, severing. Almost the concepts of each, rather than the actuality.

"This battle is already over."

And so, as Naruto watched, it was. The dragon, as vast as the sky itself, seized the Sentinel in it's claws and ignored the blows by a weapon that Naruto felt would have split their world in half.

Then it tore the warrior in half.

The two halves drifted and spat out motes of light until the warrior disintegrated in a great plume of the same white sparks.

Pein was grave, almost resigned, as if he was watching his funeral as the two floated unsupported in space.

"...this creature, for I do not call it human or kin to us in any way,"

Naruto watched with the mind-searing clarity of the Sharingan as the dragon devoured the planet, ripping chunks off and letting pieces bigger than the elemental nation drift off into the blackness. Lights, previously covering the planet like tiny fleas, shuttered in a wave that Naruto knew was death on a scale he couldn't fathom.

He was watching an apocalypse, a cataclysm no one could stop.

"I… I don't understand still. Why are you showing me this?"

Pein regarded him, piercing script-covered eyes shuttered, unreadable.

"That is q."

Naruto's world rocked. Otsutsuki…?

"She and her kind are world-devourers, pests and parasites, that invade a planet and though it sometimes takes them hundreds or thousands of years, they crack open a world's defenses, usually guarded by the Weavekeepers, the Seraphar- like the poor soul you watched die- and suck out the chakra like a horrible beast on a bone. Marrow and all."

The millions of colors were back, sucking them again through the tunnel of striations, an eye-twisting circle, and all the destruction was back.

Mikoto.

The glassed city.

Impossible questions and really only one that mattered.

"Why show me? Why fight us at all when we should be working together to defeat… her?"

Pein scoffed.

"Konohagakure has been the giant puppet of the Otsutsuki for almost a hundred and fifty years, and before that was the empire. Hashirama, Madara- fools and idiots that couldn't see past their own prideful noses. We Uzumaki? We knew and worked with whoever would listen; the Temples, the Bijuu- even Madara at one point- all to the greater good."

The purple eyes were cold chips.

"But as ever, humanity is selfish. They banded together and killed us. If you think, for one second, that Konohagakure is blameless from that, you are a bigger fool than I pegged you for Naruto Uzumaki."

Reeling, Naruto tried to process, speaking quickly.

"No, wait, then why not just-"

But no, it made a mad kind of sense. No one wanted to cooperate because they were kings of their own domains. Don't rock the boat and they'd all continue to profit. Until the Uzumaki came speaking of threats from…

"Yes, you understand. Who would believe that aliens from space wanted to eat our planet? It sounds stupid. Why would they?"

Why indeed?

"How far have you progressed into the Path of Ascendancy?"

Wary, and unsure now, Naruto realized his bandages were back and he wasn't seeing with the clarity of the Sharingan.

Pain rushed back and his body sagged, mind fogging.

"I… I don't know what that is, well, sort of."

"Impressive then that you were already familiar enough with my Kojiki to attempt to seize control."

He doesn't know about Kaguya. Something told him that was the only reason he was still alive.

Taking on a lecturing tone, Pein dropped to the ground, crouching and pulling up grains of sand, opening his hand and letting them gently spill around his fingers.

"Ascendancy, or The Path, is something that almost everyone who makes it to a certain stage of chakra density discovers for themselves. We have few enough people that meet the criteria for it to be a written, ordered thing."

He sighed. "If we did, maybe this wouldn't have to happen."

"What thing?"

Pein ignored his words, continuing.

"Your Throneworld, if you haven't discovered it yet, you will, is the center of your Path of Ascendancy. You accumulate nature chakra in order to grow your power, expressing fundamental concepts that translate into Laws, personal Laws, that will govern your power and shape it in a particular direction as you continue your growth."

Pein stared consideringly at Naruto.

"We are similar, you and I, but different enough that our powers take on different expressions. I use script and fuinjutsu, yes, but so do you. It is the form and function they develop an affinity towards that governs what our Laws will look like, and what kind of body we end up with. You follow?"

Mind whirling, Naruto understood enough to nod.

"The end of the Path, and truly there is no end, is that of a Judge; a reality-twisting monarch that shapes what is and what is not around them according to their fully-developed Final Law."

Pein sat back on his haunches.

"That dragon was the Judge of Final Consumption, Matriarch of the Otsutsuki Clans. She has been eating planets for as long as our records go back and set her sights on us a long time ago. Her agents are here working to open a direct line back to their homeworld."

Anger boiled up in Naruto. Anger at his life being shaped by forces he couldn't comprehend, let alone do anything about.

Was this why Mifune had to die? Zets


u thought Naruto would get in his way?

Why did Naruto even care one way or the other?

"So stop them, right? I mean, it has to be Zetsu and Madara! You were working with them, so shouldn't you know that?"

Pein smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"Oh, I will kill them when the time is right… but I don't intend this planet to fall into anyones hands but my own. I will burn it to ash before I allow us to be devoured by that beast."

"So… so then I don't get why you killed Mikoto? Why are we even having this conversation?"

"There was… a prophecy. Given a long time ago by something very reliable."

"Who gives a shit about a prophecy?"

"Everyone, Naruto. Words have meaning. If you spend enough time on your Path, you'll understand. The words inside have the most meaning of all. Mikoto believed you were the Conqueror."

Naruto began to laugh, a startled, high-pitched anxious laugh.

"Me? That's absurd."

"Madara believes it's him. And I?"

Naruto was quiet as the aura around them both changed.

Tension filled the air like thrown blades. The target was yet to be decided.

"I think it's me." Pein smiled like an orderly patiently talking to a simpleton, "but, only one of us gets to decide whether we face Basilikum Otsutsuki, let her devour us, join them perhaps, or simply fight and die."

Pein heaved himself to his feet, then floated effortlessly up six inches to look down on Naruto.

"I don't believe it's fair to let another Uzumaki die unnecessarily, even if I'll be the one to kill you eventually…and it felt… wrong to do so today. Mikoto was in my way, just as Konohagakure is in my way, just as Madara is on the wrong side of this conflict. Everything is in my way… so I'll sweep everything aside and make my choice. But some things can wait."

Naruto was quiet. He, at least, is telling me the truth. Why lie with such an outlandish tale? Was Basilikum Otsutsuki the most elaborate genjutsu on the planet?

No, Pein was being honest.

Naruto shivered.

He remembered Mikoto's fevered words, 'the prophecy! You can change the world!'

It was clear, of all things, that the world was headed towards a reckoning, one way or another.

"Come find me when you're ready to die, taazan."

What did that word mean? Taazan?

A sound like hissing steam was the only noise apart from Naruto's labored breathing, then echoing silence as Naruto knew he was alone again, among the ruins of a city that happened to be collateral damage in a trap that had nothing whatsoever to do with Naruto. But no, everyone was connected as he'd suspected. Everything did revolve around him, didn't it?

He laughed until he fell asleep.

Almost a second later, but really, the world was dark now when he woke, except for some hydrofoils way out in the bay still burning, the water churning and steaming, roiling like ramen waiting on the stove, he managed to have regained something of energy in his body enough to get to his feet and start walking.

Naruto hoped those boats weren't his team.

He kept walking until he reached a forest, some forest, and tripped.

A snarl escaped, then a bubbling, gurgling laugh that saw him coughing blood in a moment. His ankle was weak, a fracture most likely, and putting weight on it wasn't a good idea.

He knew that.

But he had to run. Aren't I done running? Didn't I just show Kaguya- and what good is SHE NOW? The person he most relied on, aside from a select few, was quite possibly a double-agent working for a world-eating dragon-woman.

Who could he trust?

Limping, he staggered forward into the forest proper, dark limbs leering out of the night to catch him. He turned the limp into a loping run, fell, landed heavily, and lay there as exhaustion claimed him.

His last thought as night well and truly fell: maybe, I'll die in my sleep.


A/N: Crazy that this is the second to last chapter of the story I had planned for Book 1. Some things are mega-different- others? Not so much. Wild. A pre-mature thank you to everyone who has bothered to read and review thus far. This chapter is unbeta'd as of posting, so forgive me for the errors. Please feel free to point them out in reviews, if you wouldn't be so kind. This is, by far, the longest chapter I've written at over 20,000 words alone. I felt the fight deserved the space- that and the rest of the tidbits and nobbly-todds.

Anyway, a huge thank you to everyone who has come this far- here's to the finale (and the future set-up for Book 2!)

Also, where is Obito and Kakashi... and Rin for that matter? :)

Cheers,

J.B. Macleod