Chapter Two: Afterlife
Neji was warm. Warm and safe.
All the pain he had felt before was gone, and he opened his eyes to see the light. Strong arms were around him, and he was wrapped in something. At first, he wondered if this was some sort of vision, and then he knew at once it must have been.
"Neji..." said a voice he could not see.
"Just let me die," said Neji.
"But you already did that," said a familiar voice.
Neji realized that he was currently wrapped in Naruto Uzumaki's arms and in a field of flowers. Letting out a cry, he quickly pulled himself up and...
Stared.
The place around him was indescribable. It was a field of flowers over a great gap, leading to a massive lake. But the scale was so much larger than he'd thought possible. Everything he saw around him was real, so much more real than anything he'd dreamed.
Yet...
It was a dream. "Um... what is... where is this place? This...
"Did Madara make this?"
"If Madara made this, you wouldn't be here," said Naruto. "His dreams are all rooted in the world. This place is heaven."
Neji realized the obvious. "I... I'm dead."
A sense of unease and relief washed through Neji as he turned to see Naruto. Except, Naruto, as he saw him, was different somehow. It was like he had been when wearing his chakra cloak, but it didn't hurt the eyes. He also seemed to lack the flaws, little imperfections that everyone had.
"Not exactly," said Naruto. "We drew your spirit up here before Madara could do what he did. You are in a moment between moments."
Then the moment would pass.
Neji panicked and ran forward, grabbing him by the shoulder and feeling fear. Except there was no pain to the fear. "Please! Please don't send me back down there, Naruto!
"I... the entire world made no sense, and I... and you and Hinata were about to die, and I took the spikes! But then... then I was trapped in hell, except it was above the world, and Madara he... he tortured me. He kept sending me back into dreams that seemed nice, but I couldn't believe them, and he... he...
"Don't send me back, I'm begging you! Let me stay here, please!"
"Alright, alright, geez. You don't have to go anywhere you don't want to go," said Naruto. "You were never this affectionate when we were kids."
Neji thought about what it meant that Naruto was here and had a theory. But he didn't feel any dread for having it. "...Are you dead as well?"
On the one hand, if Naruto was dead, that was bad? Wasn't it? Except he was here and not in Madara's hands.
"Not exactly," said Naruto. "Uh, long story short, I'm God. I created the universe, all universes everywhere, and every creature within it. In each universe, I gave people free will. And because they have free will, sometimes people don't do what they ought to.
"And sometimes a lot of people do bad things, and those bad things build on one another. Then you get a cascade of darkness that causes people to give up hope.
"That's why I usually incarnate in mortal form when that happens.
"I'm called Naruto in your world, but I'm called a lot of different things in different worlds. Each one focuses on a different aspect of my true self. Self-sacrifice, kindness, bravery, and more. All of the qualities I possess. And they are in such amounts that cannot be conveyed in a mortal, not even you as you are.
"All my mortal incarnations are sort of like... well shadow clones. Each one is me. But only an aspect of me. And they have what powers and abilities they need."
"Please tell me you are not an Uchiha," said Neji.
Naruto laughed at that, and Neji found himself almost laughing as well. "...Well, if you want to be really technical, I am in the sense that the Uchiha are part of the universe. Therefore, in their most fundamental aspect, basically good. And since I am the source of all good, we do have a bond.
"But I've got the same bond with you, and Sakura, and every other being in every other universe. That bond can't be severed unless the person chooses to sever it. Even then, I am always hunting them, trying to reestablish it."
"Then why did we lose?" asked Neji, feeling a bit broken. "Why... why did you let this happen to me?"
"Because what happened, Neji, was the best of all possible worlds," said Naruto.
Neji didn't understand it. "How can you say that?"
Naruto sighed. "Neji, I do have things I can't do.
"I don't interfere with free will. So if someone is deadset on doing the wrong thing, I can't stop them. I can try to convince them to stop, I can send someone to stop them. But if the person I send to stop them doesn't listen, I have to go to someone else.
"And at some point, there simply aren't enough people willing to listen. So, bad things happen to good people. Now, of course, I can still use those bad things. For instance, your fight with Hinata."
"That... but that was a long time ago and..." Neji looked away, unable to look him in the eye.
"It may as well have been a second in the time of heaven," said Naruto. "You were facing off against Hinata in the Chunin Exams, and the enemy was at your shoulder. They were using all the hatred, all the pain, the humiliation that wounded your pride. They used it to get you to do something wrong.
"Now, of course, I was also at your side, telling you that Hinata had nothing to do with those things. The enemy then told you that Hinata was guilty by association. They guessed what I was saying. They can't actually hear me, of course, but sometimes they can guess what I'm saying.
"In the end, you tried to get Hinata to forfeit, and when she wouldn't give up, you beat her to a bloody pulp. It nearly killed her, it made a lot of people hate you, and nearly got you killed.
"But, I was able to use your sense of guilt to reach you later. Hinata also was able to greatly improve in power. You managed to realize the error of your ways and move past and become a much better person. Now, I probably could have managed that more easily if you'd just knocked Hinata out. But still, I used the enemy's own tools against them."
"Who is the enemy? Madara?" asked Neji. Was he that dangerous?
"There's no real point in going into the details," said Naruto. "Madara is definitely of their party, though. Not that he knows it. They prefer their tools to live in ignorance."
Neji hesitated a long moment, feeling a sense of curiousity rather than unease. "...Why am I here, Naruto?"
"Well, you were a good person. Relatively speaking, obviously," said Naruto. "You ultimately sought forgiveness for your sins and worked to help other people.
"Everyone else is here too, your Father, everyone."
"What about the others? Guy? Tenten? Lee?" asked Neji.
"Oh, they'll be there," said Naruto. "Technically speaking, they aren't dead, of course. But you have to understand that a human life is less than the blink of an eye in the time of heaven. It would be like you were walking through a door a little bit ahead of them.
"All you have to do is glance back."
"But it seems a long time on the other end, doesn't it?" asked Neji.
"Well, yeah," said Naruto. "Neji, I'm going to level with you. You're not actually dead right now. Madara is about to put you into another dream. You'll be forced to enter it, emerge, and be tortured over and over again. But you don't have to go there.
"The way I see it, you had a pretty miserable life, and I can't really expect you to do more.
"I could kill you if you want?"
"What?" said Neji. Was he talking about the cessation of existence?
"No, not here, obviously," said Naruto. "All I have to do is use the stress your body has been under to give you a heart attack. You'll be dead without even knowing it, and you can stay here for good."
"So why haven't you?" asked Neji. But he already knew the answer.
Naruto paused. "...I'd like to ask you to go back, Neji. That's why I didn't have any of the others here to greet you. I wanted you to make impartial decisions.
"Your presence in the dreams is causing Madara serious problems. You are disrupting the dreams of every single person you had a bond with. But if you die, he'll just put in a prop, and that bond will be severed.
"He'll rule for a lot longer and hurt a lot more people.
"Once you're no longer available as a plaything, Madara is going to move on to others. He's evil, in the end, and evil people are never content with a victory. They always need more, and if they can't get more, they have to rub what they do have in their victims' faces. It's one of the reasons they never last.
"Madara will start targetting others."
Neji thought about this place, this wonderful place, and then thought about going back... there. To that hellscape where he was hurt every day no matter what he tried to do. "No, no, why can't you do this?! No one else is available other than me! I'm nothing, just a Hyuga with some skill at Kaiten! You're a God! You could just make some freak accident wreck his plan!
"Or you could have actually won! You had a mortal avatar, so why... why would you let yourself lose!"
"Who says I've lost?" asked Naruto. "I never go back on my word, Neji. The Infinite Tsukiyomi itself will be the tool by which peace is achieved. No one will forget what they say within it.
"But you need to help free people from it."
Neji didn't even begin to understand this. But he knew he had to accept. In the end, he had lived to serve others. "How... what do I do?"
"Madara is going to make a mistake with his experimental device," said Naruto. "I'm going to allow for you to enter the dreams of another.
"Sasuke Uchiha."
"Him?!" asked Neji, finding it odd that he could feel hatred here. In fact, Neji could look over Sasuke's misdeeds and hate him even more than before. It was a pure kind of absolute, righteous loathing, based on objective facts.
But it wasn't really directed at Sasuke. Neji was just directing his hatred at him.
"Why him?" asked Neji. "He nearly got us all killed for nothing! Not to mentioned betrayed the Leaf and-"
"Sasuke is in the darkness now," said Naruto, using his own words against him. "Wasn't that what you said to me?"
"It was a completely different context, and you know it," said Neji. "At the time, I thought I was trying to get back a comrade who had been manipulated. I see now that he was never a good person. If his family hadn't been killed, he'd have made exactly the same choices for different reasons.
"He scoffs at the pain others feel, even as he demands absolute obedience because of his own pain. He expects mercy, even as he gives it to no one. He demands his subordinates lay down their lives for them and then spits on their corpses.
"Madara he...
"Madara showed some of his dreams, Naruto. I saw what he did when he was let off his leash.
"The only reason he hadn't murdered us all for fun was that he didn't have ultimate power. Once he got that... nothing stopped him."
"Sasuke has been getting everything he wants and more for quite some time, Neji," said Naruto. "I need you to save him.
"But, I can find another if you don't feel you can do it."
Neji looked at paradise and knew he could know eternal happiness with everyone he had ever loved. He saw it and then looked back at the world. The brutal, malformed form of gray matter, a place that was holding only pain and prison.
But other people were trapped down there, in that desolate place. Naruto had asked him for a reason. "...No, no, I'll do it."
"Great!" said Naruto. "I uh... quick thing, you're not gonna remember this except as a very hazy feeling. Your mortal mind wouldn't be able to comprehend to the full majesty of all this.
"You're going to have to figure some of it out on your own, but I'll guide you in the right direction. Just have faith.
"Oh, and mind the jolt."
Neji nodded, turned, and walked into the darkness.
Reality faded, and the dream began.
Author's Note:
So, after the bleakness of last chapter I figured I'd add something to give a ray of hope. No promises that I'll continue this though, so this may remain a two chapter fic.
