Chapter One: Messenger

Naruto Uzumaki was surrounded by white.

Pure, undiluted white. It wasn't a room, and there was no floor or ceiling or walls. Naruto couldn't see anything, and as he stood up, he felt his injuries gone. The pain was gone as well.

A moment ago, he'd been getting pummeled repeatedly in the face by Karui and not fighting back. He'd tried to convince them to go save their master, Killer Bee. But they hadn't believed him and started beating him to find Sasuke and learn his techniques.

Naruto couldn't let them kill Sasuke, no matter what he'd gone.

Because Sasuke was still his friend.

"I... where am I?" asked Naruto.

Then turning, he saw a figure, clad in white robes, their face obscured by light. Moving forward, Naruto saw him. "Is that... God?"

Out of the life stepped Orochimaru, looking very, very, pleased with himself. "Welcome to the afterlife, Naruto. You're dead."

Wait, what. "You... what is going on here, Orochimaru? This is Sasuke's mindscape isn't it? And you're trying to take over my body, aren't you?"

"No," said Orochimaru. "You're dead, and I'm God."

Naruto knew he should have stayed back in camp and eaten ramen. How do you even react to something like this? "You are not God, Orochimaru! The ninja world isn't that cruel and unusual!"

"Fine, I confess. I'm actually your guardian angel," said Orochimaru.

Naruto considered his life story so far. "...That explains a lot."

"Indeed it does, but that is not important. What is important is that your life ended... oh... five seconds ago, at the hands of the Cloud Ninja Karui," said Orochimaru. "In her anger, she beat you and beat you. Eventually, she accidentally snapped something vital."

Naruto blinked.

Was he really dead? The idea was weird. He couldn't die; he still had to bring Sasuke back to the village and bring peace to the ninja world. "...What?

"I was just going to let her hit me until she got her anger out."

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow. "Truly, you are a worthy successor to Jiraiya.

"Of course, now that you're dead, the Leaf Village will find out. And since you are their hero, there is going to be a huge war. Once the Cloud and the Leaf are going at, everyone else is going to pick sides."

"What, but that can't happen! I've got to bring peace to the Ninja World!" said Naruto.

"You can't bring peace if you're dead, Naruto," said Orochimaru. "You went, unguarded and unprotected, into an enclosed area with two bloodthirsty ninjas. Both of them wanted to kill your uh, 'associate' shall we call him. And they threatened to kill you if you didn't answer.

"You didn't answer, so they beat to death."

Wait, associate, was he talking about Sasuke? "Sasuke is my friend!" said Naruto.

"No," said Orochimaru. "No, he is not. If you believe he is, you are wrong. You are entitled to your opinion, but your opinion is objectively wrong. Sasuke stopped being your friend after he put a Chidori through your chest. Although I would mark the point of no return to when he nearly got your actual friends killed."

"What would you know about friendship?!" said Naruto.

"Enough to know that I stopped being friends with Jiraiya and Tsunade. Once you betray your nation, murder your master and all that, why even pretend to like a person?" asked Orochimaru. "You realize that Sasuke is working with the Akatsuki right now. Has he just nearly started a war between Cloud and Leaf? You can't use me as a scapegoat anymore; I've been dead for months."

Naruto took the point, but he hadn't doubted his will for Nagato. He wasn't going to doubt it for Orochimaru. "...Sasuke may be in the darkness, but he's still my friend."

"He's tried to kill you oh... three times by now, was it?" mused Orochimaru. "Let's see, there was the Valley of the End. There was his attempt to use Kirin to fry you, only stopped by me. And then he killed your shadow clone without a second thought.

"For all he knew, it could have been you.

"This ignoring him trying to kill Sakura, the person you're doing all this for, and all your other friends. Not to mention leading the Sound Four to their deaths out of spite-"

"That doesn't matter! I can forgive him!" said Naruto, not wanting to hear any more of this.

"But can he forgive you?" asked Orochimaru.

"What?" said Naruto. "Forgive me for what?" He hadn't expected that kind of attack.

"For refusing to acknowledge him as anything other than an object. A precious object for your gratification, of course," said Orochimaru. "No one could ever want to be friends with someone who has done the things Sasuke has done to you. You think you do. But you are mistaking a possessive obsession for a symbiotic relationship."

"...Um... what does that even mean?" asked Naruto.

Orochimaru sighed. "You want to possess Sasuke. You have positive emotional associations you have with the time you spent together. And since that time came to an end with Sasuke's departure, you hope to bring it back with him. I understand how you feel because I felt exactly the same way. I merely understood that I viewed him as an object for satiating my own desires.

"...In retrospect, that may have been a poor decision."

"You can say that again. He totally crushed you," said Naruto, amused.

"I was dying on my sickbed, and he had the element of surprise," said Orochimaru. "Tell me, where is that vaunted compassion you had for Nagato and Konan? I didn't do as much damage as they did. How do you know I don't have some tragic justification for wanting to destroy the Leaf?"

"Do you?" asked Naruto, genuinely curious.

"No," admitted Orochimaru. "I hold the Will of Fire in contempt, enjoy sewing chaos, and the Leaf Village makes a convenient target. I could have done the same thing to the Cloud or the Mist, and I'd have enjoyed it as much. Faction is more or less irrelevant to me.

"We're alike in that regard."

"We're nothing alike, Orochimaru! I do not regard Sasuke as my possession!" said Naruto.

"Then you have respect for his agency as a person, and acknowledge that he has the right to make his own decisions?" asked Orochimaru.

"Of course," said Naruto.

"Even if those decisions lead him to abandon the Leaf and kill everyone you love?" asked Orochimaru simply.

Naruto had the feeling he'd been forced into a corner somehow. "...You drove him to that. He's not thinking."

"Isn't he?" asked Orochimaru. "He killed me months ago. He killed Itachi shortly thereafter. And now he's starting a war with the Cloud. It may be that he's gone mad and is in need of help. But have you considered the possibility that Sasuke might not want to go back to the Leaf at all?

"Maybe he would rather go into mercenary work. Perhaps he has come to believe in the Akatsuki's ideology of his own volition. What if he does not want to be your friend anymore. What if Sasuke's decisions are not a result of trauma or being 'in the darkness.' What if Sasuke hates you of his own free will.

"Are you going to bring him back to the Leaf anyway? So he can rot in prison? Or you could use some jutsu to make him want to be your friend. Or you could break every bone in his body and made him wholly dependent on you? Keep him locked away in a hospital on life support so you and Sakura can have him whenever you want."

"I..." Naruto didn't have an answer.

"Have you thought about what you would do with Sasuke if he choose to be your enemy of his own free will?" asked Orochimaru. "Have you ever considered the possibility that he might cease to be your friend and became your enemy?"

"He is my friend!" said Naruto. "No matter what he has done!"

"And is Kabuto your friend?" asked Orochimaru.

"Of course not!" said Naruto.

"Why not?" asked Orochimaru.

"Because he was never my friend, to begin with!" said Naruto. "He was only pretending to help us so he could use us for his own ends and get you Sasuke!"

"But you thought of him as a friend, at the time, didn't you?" asked Orochimaru.

Naruto shifted. He remembered when Kabuto had appeared, declaring that he had been inspired by Naruto. Naruto had been creeped out by what he had done to himself and unsure of how to respond. "...Yes."

"And Kabuto healed you when you were seriously injured, didn't he?" asked Orochimaru. "That was after his betrayal of you."

"He just wanted me to kill more of the Akatsuki," said Naruto, feeling less and less sure of himself. "I never really mattered to him."

"Oh? And are you sure you ever really mattered to Sasuke?" asked Orochimaru. "I notice he only left the village when you got stronger than him.

"What if, and humor me on this, Sasuke held you and Sakura in contempt from the very beginning. However, he chose to cooperate with you because you were a team, and he knew he needed you.

"What if Sasuke is just like Kabuto? Have you considered that possibility?"

Naruto paused for a moment. "I have.

"We... we had our issues at first, but we became friends. He was one of the first people to acknowledge me. He was like a brother."

"Like Itachi?" asked Orochimaru, smiling widely.

"Don't even speak about him to me!" said Naruto.

"But surely Sasuke at one time had the same bond with Itachi that you have with Sasuke," said Orochimaru. "Itachi massacred their entire family and tortured Sasuke. Just as Sasuke put your teammates, the closest thing you had to family, in a position to be killed. And then tried to kill them.

"Should Sasuke forgive Itachi?"

"Yes!" said Naruto, because the alternative was doubting his will.

"I see," said Orochimaru. "If Sasuke was here, would you ever say that to his face?"

"No!" said Naruto.

"Why not?" asked Orochimaru.

"Because... because that would be horrible," said Naruto. "Itachi ruined Sasuke's life. I... I wouldn't have the right to tell him to do that."

"But you have," said Orochimaru. "You have all but declared universal forgiveness of all sins. And you would wipe away the punishment those sins call down. You cannot hold such an ideology and not tell Sasuke to forgive Itachi. Because by not forgiving Itachi, he would be committing a sin.

"If you would be unwilling to say it, well, perhaps your conscience is the problem."

"Itachi was a monster!" said Naruto. "He was completely unrepentant; he massacred his entire family, a whole clan for... for power!"

"I won't argue with any of that," said Orochimaru. "So let me change my example. What if Itachi came to Sasuke and said he was sorry.

"Would you stop Sasuke from killing him?"

"Yes!" said Naruto. "I... what Itachi did was horrible, but this world is bleak enough. And if Itachi was alive, he could do something to make things better for other people. Killing him wouldn't solve anything, and if he was really repentant, then he could save a lot of other people."

"Okay," said Orochimaru. "What if Itachi pulls a knife and tries to kill Sasuke after he forgives him. You defeat him and have him cornered, and he begs for mercy and tells you he is sorry. Do you stop Sasuke again?"

Naruto didn't like where this was heading. "...Does he mean it?"

"You don't know if he means it," said Orochimaru. "If you spare him this time, maybe he'll pull a knife. Or maybe, having realized he can't beat you, he'll go and try to hurt your friends instead. Try to ruin those close to you in a final act of spite.

"But then, if you spare him a second time, maybe he'll finally get the message. Maybe he'll become a good person, and everyone will just forget about what he did. And you'll all live happily ever after."

Naruto...

Naruto was beginning to hate this conversation. It was bad enough that he was dead, but now the afterlife was him getting deconstructed by Orochimaru. He'd much rather be in a hot tub with Sakura and Hinata. "...What does it matter anyway?

"Sasuke is gone, I'm dead, and a war is about to happen. You won."

"Well, if it's any consolation, I'm not enjoying victory very much," said Orochimaru.

"It's not," said Naruto. "There's nothing to be done about it."

Orochimaru paused. "What if there was?"

"What do you mean?" asked Naruto.

Orochimaru walked away, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Well, let's say that you could relive your life. Go back in time and make different choices at different points.

"Perhaps if you had gotten to know Sasuke earlier and he'd been your friend for years instead of months..."

"What?" said Naruto.

"Maybe he'd never have left the village," said Orochimaru. "Perhaps you could stop all of this if you'd just made some different choices when you were a kid."

"What makes you say that?" asked Naruto.

"Well, you may not realize this, but we were somewhat similar to Naruto," said Orochimaru. "It's just that my life is the inverse of yours. When I was your age, I was stoic, reserved, highly industrious, and planned carefully. It was why I survived as long as I did. Both of us desired to be Hokage.

"After Sensei supported Minato's claim over mine, however, I snapped. The betrayal of my mentor led me to decide not to play by the rules anymore. Much like you, I decided to get back at the people who wronged me and seek my own power.

"But when you did it, you were a child looking for attention.

"When I did it, I was an adult looking for revenge.

"You painted the Hokage Monument many different colors. I painted the Leaf Village red with blood."

"What do you want, Orochimaru?" asked Naruto, wondering where all this was going.

"Simple enough," said Orochimaru. "I'd like to give you the chance to relive a single day of your life. I have authorization from on high. You see, your life is like a tapestry. Every little moment plays into every other moment. Sometimes, the events of a single day can change the entire picture.

"A single decision dictates where your life heads from then on."

Naruto shook his head. "I can't do that.

"What if by changing my past, I change the future, and Pain kills everyone in the village or something?"

Orochimaru considered that. "...Fair enough.

"Let us say that history will set itself on the rough, pre-existing path. The thing will be largely the same as they were. Others will compensate for your absence."

"Then what's the point?" asked Naruto.

"Because even if history is on the same path, different people could be on it," said Orochimaru. "For instance, Asuma could be alive. Sensei could be alive. Perhaps Pain is stopped before he can reduce the village to a crater.

"Even if the same general events remain true, the details could be very different. And a world is defined by its details."

"Well, what if the details are worse?" asked Naruto.

Orochimaru looked at him and smiled. "Oh, I see.

"So you admit your ideology has no staying power in the real world."

"No, I don't!" said Naruto. "Anyone can be forgiven if they repent, and anyone can be convinced to repent of their own free will! I learned that facing Pain!"

"But are you willing to prove it?" asked Orochimaru. "Are you willing to apply the lessons you have learned here to a single day in the distant past? Or are you content to leave the world as it is?"

Naruto realized he had to take the challenge. If he wasn't willing to try to prove Orochimaru wrong, then he didn't really believe it himself. And it wasn't like he had anything better to do. "...Fine.

"Let's do this."

Orochimaru's smile widened. "Excellent.

"Then take my hand."

Naruto took it, and the world changed...