Hi people!
Here is the new chapter.
Same warnings apply as the rest of the story. Chapter-specific warnings: mentions of death and violence, mentions of personal tragedy, lots of feelings and emotional emotions. You've been warned.
This chapter is a bit on the long side of things. It is slow. It is 100% world building and weaves in and out of canon.
I absolutely loved writing this chapter but I won't tell you anymore about it to avoid spoilers.
As always, a massive thanks to White-Witch-Sakura, my amazing beta!
Enjoy!
OH ! PS: this chapter is heavily linked with "You". You might need to keep that in mind.
Chapter 6
Minato turned to the door of his office as it opened. In walked Jiraiya.
"-Minato, you sent for me? I was about to head out.
-Sensei! Thanks for coming. I might need you to stay in the village a bit longer."
The tall Toad Sage walked into his old student's office. He moved to comfortably sit in the chair in from of the desk. Minato served him a cup of the steaming tea he had just made.
"-So, what is keeping me from going out to see Hime?
-It won't be long. I just wanted to introduce someone to you.
-Oh? Is she pretty?
-Well, I do think I'm fairly attractive to the eye, yes."
Jiraiya turned around, surprised by the distinctly masculine voice coming from his back. Naruto and Kakashi walked into the office.
"-Eh, I guess if you squint hard enough, brat!" Jiraiya's voice burst in a booming voice. "Good to see you back in the village, kid!"
Naruto nodded back to him silently, a small smile on his lips. Kakashi and he came to join Jiraiya on the chairs opposite Minato's desk. When they were all seated, Minato stood up and went to close the door. He flared his chakra, signaling to his ANBU, and activated the privacy seals covering his office walls and door.
"-I thought you wanted to introduce me to someone?" came Jiraiya's voice, quite surprised by the Hokage's actions.
"-I am. Sensei, please meet Naruto."
Jiraiya frowned.
"-Ahaha, yeah, right. If this is your way of telling me I'm getting old, get lost."
Minato didn't respond anything. Naruto's voice rose in the office.
"-What did you think of the twelve pillars?"
Jiraiya's frowned deepened, not quite getting what Naruto was getting at.
"-What pillars?
-Getting them to work with the contingency array was a real bitch. Would have been easier had you been there, Ero-sennin." Naruto finished his sentence with a smirk.
Jiraiya's body jerked in surprise.
"-Ero-sennin?"
Naruto simply continued to look at him with his smirk firmly in place. The old sage looked at him, confusion clear on his face. The younger blonde could almost see his train of thoughts, slowly making his way to a conversation from twenty two years before.
"-The blood pillars?!" The Sage turned to Minato. "What is he on about? You showed him the seal?
-Old man," Naruto scoffed, "I created the seal."
Jiraiya's eyes widened in utter surprise. His face then morphed in frustration and anger.
"-If this is your idea of a prank, this is not funny." He stood up. "I'll be on my way now."
Naruto's voice rose before he could take a few steps.
"-Twelve blood pillars are a pain but if you factor in the Earth, it can work when you incorporate a few water-based arrays to diffuse the energy and have it blend into it. It reinforces the barrier if the Earth is anchored through the Hiraishin's raiton matrix. It conducts the water through the barrier which should destabilize it but with the seven-point stability matrix thrown into the mix, you can tweak it to take advantage of the fact that, just like lightening, the energy will always be attracted to the Earth. Water arrays will make the energy follow the quickest circuit available. This create a self-feeding loop that pulls the barrier around its own center."
"The nasty trick is to align the twelve pillars together factoring everyone's primary and secondary nature affinities while keeping them from melding into each other. You will need to use a Sage filter to transmute their chakra into nature chakra first in a three-step conversion. Now this would cancel out the reverse dimension aspect of the Hiraishin but not if you decompose it down to its elements and subtly write them in while you construct the failsafe to avoid your electricity frying your men through the water arrays. I could explain how I avoided that but then I would need to get deep into arcane sealing theory and I frankly don't have the energy for that now."
The office was completely silent when Naruto finished his explanation. Jiraiya let himself fall back into his chair, tea completely forgotten. All three men were looking at Naruto as if seeing the sun rise in the West.
For the first time in a very very long while, Kakashi felt completely out of his depth. He had a decent knowledge about sealing. A far cry from Minato's level, but more than most shinobi could boast. He vaguely understood what Naruto was talking about, but above that, he understood that he couldn't grasp even half of what was implied in the blonde's explanation.
Jiraiya opened and closed his mouth a few times before closing it for good, his lips a thin line and his brows in a deep frown as he processed it all.
Minato chuckled at seeing his teacher's and his student's reactions. His humor was also coming from the confirmation that Naruto had clearly blown him out of the water in his mastery over sealing. And that was saying something.
He had had twenty five years to study his son's seal. He'd managed to deconstruct it almost completely. And he understood every stroke, every element. But the sheer amount of them, the stupidly high number of things to be considered to built the seal had made him shake his head in wonder hundred of times. Every time he'd thought he had deconstructed one layer of the seal, he'd discover that it was linked with two upper layers and three lower ones.
The fact that Naruto had designed it while fighting was nothing short of astonishing. Especially considering he had had to ignore his breathing father next to him. Something Minato only truly understood the difficulty of when he'd tried to decipher the same seal with a hyperactive 6 years old Naruto running around him.
"-Jiraiya, please meet Naruto."
The older man just looked at Naruto with wonder and confusion clear on his face. The brat had the audacity to laugh.
"-It's good to see you, Ero-sennin!
-How is that possible?
-It's a long story.
-I've got time, Tsunade will wait.
-I figured. Well, the short version of it is that it was me twenty five years ago. Or thirteen days ago, depending on which side of the story you are on.
-How is that even possible?
-I really don't know where to start so I think I'm just going to tell you who I am. I am Naruto Namikaze. You know me, seen me grow up. But I am also Naruto Uzumaki, orphan, and jinchuuriki of Kurama, the Kyuubi. I am Ashura Ootsutsuki, son of the Rikudo Senin, the Sage of the Six Paths. I am Naruto of the Paths, and my soul has lived several lives which memories I now have. Some lives have passed. But some are still unfolding: this one, and the one I was living until two days ago, when my paths converged and I became aware of this path. I have lived my whole life with you, as you know me. I have also lived a very different life. A life that brought me here now, but that also brought me here almost two weeks ago."
Naruto paused and took a deep breath before starting again, motioning for them not to interrupt him.
"-Thirteen days ago for me, I was fighting a very powerful man in what is left of Iron Country. I was also fighting here, in Konoha, twenty five years in the past. The chakra in me entered in resonance with the chakra in Kushina Uzumaki, jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, and I became stronger here. Here, I was strong enough to kill Tobi. But I needed to contain him. So thirteen days ago, I designed a seal based on the Hiraishin a young Hokage had agreed to give me. I managed to kill Tobi and I left a different world behind. On my way back to what was left of Konoha, I came upon a crossroad and met the Sage of the Six Paths. This is when I learnt of who I was and what was happening."
Jiraiya was speechless. Kakashi was the first of the two to recover, Minato having already heard the explanation the day Naruto had come back.
"-From what I understand, the breach was twenty five years ago. You weren't even born. How could it have been you?
-Time is relative. Souls don't exist in a linear dimension. What I have achieved, according to the Rikudo Senin, should not have been possible. But it was. Between my chakra, Tobi's, Kurama's, and just the mix of everything else, me using the Hiraishin transcended the usual limits of time."
Silence reigned for a few minutes. Minato was savoring the shock on Jiraiya's and Kakashi's faces. Kakashi had already been told about the second life, but he had no idea Naruto had met this Minato, and twenty five years ago, no less.
Jiraiya was clearly struggling to accept it all. He kept looking at Minato as if he was expecting him to tell him it was all an elaborate prank. But the details Naruto had given about the seal were mind boggling.
"-You designed that seal?
-I did.
-How?
-I just told you.
-Not that. How did you manage to compute all of that together? That seal is easily one of the most complex I've ever seen, and I've seen your jinchuuriki seal as well as your mother's!
-Oh, that. I've studied seals for years.
-So did I but this is beyond what I can do.
-Ah but Ero-sennin, I've got two things you will never have." Naruto smirked when he saw the tall man lean forward in his chair, discreetly imitated by Minato too. "Uzumaki blood and an endless supply of Kage Bunshin!"
The eyes of all three men in the room with him widened in surprise. Their Naruto didn't know the Kage Bunshin. The fact that in another life, he did was surprising in itself, considering it was a forbidden technique. But the possibility of him actively training with them to reach such a level of mastery in sealing implied a truly crazy competency with the Nidaime's jutsu.
Kakashi quickly recovered and turned his attention to the ways he could implement that into his own training regimen. He had used Kage Bunshin for training before but just as a sparring partner.
Minato quickly reacted when an image rose in his mind, triggered by his son's answer.
"-Is that how you did it?
-Did what?
-Your taijutsu? Is that how you trained to reach the level I saw twenty five years ago?
-Yes. I mean I trained with a lot of teachers but yes, clones are essentially how I managed to beat the Sharingan."
That snapped Kakashi back into the conversation.
"-You can beat the Sharingan too? Like sensei?
-Not exactly. Dad is just faster than the Sharingan." His tone of voice suggested this was a very easy thing to achieve. It was not. "Or technically, he's not, but he's faster than the yielder. You can read him, but if your body isn't fast enough to adjust to what you see, he can beat you. Me?" Naruto shrugged. "You just can't read me."
"-I've always been able to read you.
-Not anymore, Kashi," Naruto smirked. "I told you I could teach you a thing or two."
"-Okay, okay, time out for the old man in the room." Jiraiya cut off Kakashi's come back. He turned to Naruto. "So let me get this straight, gaki. You've lived another life in which you somehow became one of the greatest seal masters I've ever seen the work of, and a taijutsu expert?
-I wouldn't really see myself as a taijutsu expert. I'm more of a ninjutsu kind of guy.
-Seriously?! With your mastery over sealing, you don't consider yourself a fuinjutsu expert?"
The surprise and disbelief were obvious in Jiraiya's voice.
"-Oh I'm definitely a fuinjutsu expert. Not taijutsu.
-If I remember correctly," interrupted Minato, "your ninjutsu is pretty impressive..."
"-Thank you. I did have Copy Cat Kakashi for a sensei, I was bound to pick up a few things." Naruto ended his sentence with a wink in Kakashi's direction.
Recognizing this as the opening it was, Kakashi oriented the conversation towards the elephant in the room: Naruto's other life.
"-I was your sensei?
-Yep. You became our sensei when I was twelve. The teams were different.
-How so?
-Well, let's just say that Dad has a very different way of selecting teams than Sandaime-jiji.
-Sandaime-jiji?"
Minato frowned. He already knew he had died on Naruto's birth day in this alternate life. It would only make sense that the Sandaime had survived. But other than that and that there had been a war, Minato didn't really know anything about Naruto's other life. It seemed he would get some answers now.
Naruto sighed at Jiraiya's question. They were now getting to the hard part of the conversation: opening up about his other life. Naruto knew it was necessary. It was why they were gathered there in the first place. But having to talk about it would be difficult. His other life hadn't exactly been very pleasant.
"-On this other path," Naruto's voice was neutral, factual, devoid of emotions, "the Kyuubi attacked the village on the day I was born. Minato Namikaze died defeating it. That's the official version of things."
Naruto took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
"-The truth is that Kushina Uzumaki was attacked while giving birth to me."
Naruto ignored the flinches he incited by talking about his mother as if she was a stranger. In a way, she had been.
"-The Kyuubi was taken out of her and sent to destroy the village. The Yondaime managed to protect the village by sealing it into his newborn baby, giving his life in the process. His wife died by his side, protecting their child. Their son was put in the orphanage alongside the rest of the children who'd lost their family in the attack. He was given his mother's maiden name to protect him from his father's enemies. He grew up alone, not knowing who he was, hated and feared by a village that was still mourning the loss of so many people. The reigning Hokage, Sandaime, did his best to take care of him whenever he could."
Naruto stopped talking for a moment, giving the others some time to process the information. His father was the first to react.
"-Do you know who attacked us? You, I mean.
-Tobi.
-Tobi? The same Tobi you killed?
-Yeah. He attacked right after I was born. Took me from Mom to distract you. He got to her when you took me to safety. By the time you reached her again, Kurama was under his genjutsu and destroying Konoha."
Minato looked at Naruto in the eyes. He swallowed past a tight lump in his throat, anger rising in his chest for what had happened in that other life.
"-You saved us."
Naruto's gaze was intense. This was a part of his life, his life here, that he didn't know: what had really happened during his birth here. His parents had told him about his brush with death when his chakra was depleted during the birth. They'd told him the only way to save him had been to seal the escaping Kyuubi in him rather than back in his mother. But that was it. Now, he would get the full story. His voice vibrated with barely restrained emotions when he spoke next.
"-You used it, my seal.
-It saved us. You told me I would need it. Somehow, I trusted you. I'm glad I did.
-You managed to change it?"
Naruto's voice was steady once more, the neutral tone of someone carefully selecting factual topics over emotional slippery ones. Naruto had years of practice doing just that.
"-Yes. Sensei powered it, as you intended."
Naruto turned towards the tall sage, whose face was set in a serious expression.
"-That was some heavy work you did there, gaki. That barrier was no joke to sustain.
-It worked with Sage mode." His tone was confident.
"-It did. But you were lucky I've mastered it almost completely. I would have been toast had I not have that control.
-Not lucky. I knew exactly what I was doing.
-Did you now?
-I factored in the Elders' nature chakra in the failsafe I built in the original design. Dad would not have changed it when he modified the seal for you."
Jiraiya turned to Minato to confirm this. Minato's eyebrows rose up.
"-I didn't even know that was in there!
-I worked it in with the Earth components. It was very subtle. I told you, I knew what I was doing. I might not have known how Dad works in fuinjutsu other than the basics, but I know how you work, Ero-sennin.
-You were a Toad Sage too, in that other life."
Jiraiya's tone wasn't really a question. Minato had told him years ago that the Naruto from the breach had been a Sage. They hadn't known he'd been a Toad sage, though.
"-I was. You signed me up with the Toads when I was thirteen. Took me a while to summon Bunta. You threw me off a goddam cliff after a few days."
Kakashi snickered at that, easily imagining his little brother's indignation. Minato immediately frowned at Jiraiya, who bristled at the vague threat in his old student's eyes.
"-Hey! That wasn't me! You know I'd never do that!
-You almost did it to me!" Came Minato's indignant reply.
"-Well, you were an adult, I knew you could take it. Besides, the kid obviously survived!"
Kakashi turned to Naruto.
"-Summoning the boss at thirteen, that's impressive."
And it was. It was not uncommon for summons to answer to young ninjas on their contract, however rare those contracts were. But usually, when a family held a contract, the younger summoner would only summon younger members of the clan.
On this path, Naruto had been granted his name on the Toad contract at the age of sixteen. It had been his birthday present from his father. He had only ever summoned Gamabunta once until now: when he had turned twenty. He'd been authorized to summon him to introduce himself. Gamabunta had acknowledged him, but it was implicit that only his father and Jiraiya were allowed to summon him to battle.
"-I guess. I didn't have much of a choice."
Naruto kept his voice a careful neutral tone, determined to get through his story as detached as possible lest he wouldn't be able to finish it.
"-Kakashi was my genin squad leader. That's when I first met you. I met you, Ero-sennin, when I was thirteen, during the chuunin exams. At the end of the exams, the village was attacked and we lost the Sandaime. You took me with you to retrieve Tsunade so she could become Godaime Hokage. That's actually when I learnt the Rasengan."
Minato smiled.
"-At thirteen still? Impressive. How long did it take you to master it this time?"
It had taken Naruto on this path two months to learn it. An impressive feat considering how long it took Minato to create the technique.
"-I don't quite remember, it was a while ago. About a week, I think, maybe ten days. I struggled a lot."
At that, all three other men gasped. This other Naruto was full of surprises.
"-Three years. It took me three years to create that technique. And you learnt it in just over a week. Your mom is never going to let me live this one down.
-I might have learnt it quickly but, if it makes you feel better, that was pretty much the only technique I knew back then. And I needed Kage Bunshin to achieve it.
-So much for the ninjutsu guy." Kakashi snorted, hiding his surprise that Naruto had learnt the forbidden shadow clone before age thirteen. What kind of life had his brother lived, in this other timeline?!
"-Yeah, well, I didn't exactly have anyone who could teach me.
-I did, didn't I?
-No, you didn't actually. Kakashi-sensei didn't teach me shit until I was sixteen, after I came back from three years with Jiraiya-sensei."
All good humor was gone from the room at his casual tone and his hard words. His tone had remained neutral but the implications of his sentence were a hard pill to swallow. Especially considering how much love Naruto had received in this life. To know he had been almost completely deprived of it in another life was heartbreaking.
Sensing Kakashi's mood shift to a somber mix of gloom and guilt, Naruto turned towards him. His voice was still steady but warmth and conviction seeped into it when he spoke.
"-Stop it. Stop that right now. This has nothing to do with you. Don't put that on yourself. I don't blame you, never even had a reason to. And I never blamed you there either. Him… However you want to call him. He is not you. He was a different man. Someone I will never let you become. Sensei was not a great man, but he was a good one. He had his issues, and he did the best he could. And that was enough. Until the very end," There, Naruto's voice wavered with the tremor of the recent loss, "he did his best."
Naruto's eyes were shining with unshed tears and a fierceness that pierced right through Kakashi's soul. For a moment, he could almost feel as if he was his alter ego, Naruto reaching for him through time and space. The impression lasted only for an instant before Kakashi's nod made Naruto relax back into his carefully crafted professionalism.
"-Long story short, I trained with Ero-sennin for a while, then I came back to Konoha. We were assigned a new team, and a new captain.
-I was demoted?
-No, we just had two captains.
-That's unheard of." Minato noted.
"-We were kind of a special case. Yamato-taichou mostly worked with me. Now that I think about it, I think you know him under a different name here. I would have to sense him to recognize him. Anyways, after you were killed," Naruto said, glancing briefly at Jiraiya, who flinched, "I went to learn sage mode with the Toads."
Another loss. Naruto had only known Jiraiya for three years before losing him. Minato's heart sunk for his son. How much had he had to suffer?
"-How old were you?
-Sixteen.
-How long did it take you?
-I'm not too sure. You know how time is different over there. There was no time to talk about that when I came back.
-Why not?
-When I came back, the village was under attack. Well, destroyed would be more accurate." All three older ninjas flinched and straightened. "Pein destroyed the village. Hundreds of people, all gone like that," he said snapping his fingers. Naruto was purposefully avoiding eye contact with Kakashi as he said that, which didn't go unnoticed. "I had finished my training with Sage chakra by then but it was not enough. I hum… I got pretty upset and I tried to remove the seal. That's when I met you, Dad.
-In the seal.
-Yes. You were my hero. The Yondaime Hokage. My own father! I used to dream about it when I was a child. I had never thought it could be true.
-Did you… Did you resent me?
-For sealing Kurama into me? No. Well… Yes, I did. I punched you actually. But no, not really. How could I resent you when I was the son of the Yondaime Hokage, right?"
Naruto smiled as he echoed his own words from a life time ago. Minato felt pride and relief swell in his chest. He smiled back. Naruto stood up and went to look out by the window. He took a few minutes to compose himself again.
"-Anyways, that's when shit really hit the fan.
-Oh, you mean it gets worse than Konoha being destroyed?" Came Jiraiya's sarcastic reply.
Naruto snorted in answer. It was an ugly sound, full of bitterness. It wiped Minato's smile away.
"-Konoha was destroyed but we rebuilt." His words vibrated with pride and determination. "We started to anyways. But Tobi, that's when he really put his plans into motion."
He stopped talking for a few seconds. When he started again, his voice was low.
"-The war started a few weeks later. Tens of thousands of shinobis, from all the big nations. Working together. Fighting together."
His tone now held the unyielding quality of tempered steel. His back was turned to them but he was standing straight, his shoulders broad and solid. Unconsciously, Kakashi, Jiraiya and Minato all straightened up as well, mirroring him.
"-We were the Allied Shinobi Forces." Power was laced through the syllables. "The biggest army history has ever seen. Shinobis from all nations, working together to defend our freedom. The five Kages, all defending their people, our people, everyone's people."
Naruto didn't move from the window as he breathed slowly. His voice had morphed into a tool. Sharp as a razor edge, smooth as polished wood, strong as the Earth, and unyielding as the mountain.
In front of them, Minato realized, was the commander, the Rokudaime Hokage, a man who had led that unimaginable army through the horrors that were going to follow. His mind could barely imagine such a force. Shinobis of all nations, working together. What had pushed them to that point?
Minato suddenly felt a sense of danger. A wave of pure, unadulterated hatred and anger rising from Naruto's direction. A power that set his teeth on edge, that instantly snapped his body into fight mode. A shiver went up his spine.
As soon as he felt it, it was gone, replaced by the coldness of completely repressed emotions.
"-We were ripped to pieces." Naruto snarled the words. "Slowly, we were taken apart. No one was safe. Nowhere was safe. We lost so many." His hand clenched into a fist before he took a deep breath and forced his body to relax. "Six years and a half. It took us, it took me, six and a half years to end this war."
Naruto bent his head forward to rest his forehead against the cool glass of the window. He closed his eyes. The three other men in the room barely dared to move. They all had been in a war. Two, in Jiraiya's case. They knew what Naruto had had to go through. And yet, not really. He had had to go through a war unlike any other. And no one but him knew about it.
Naruto shivered but didn't move, his eyes still closed. His voice sounded distant when he spoke next, as if he was talking to himself rather than to the other three men in the room.
"-It was beautiful. All of them, working together. The five Kages. The weight they took on their shoulders. Tsunade, A, Mei, Oonoki, Gaara. You should have seen them. Everyone, together. Iwaris and Konohans, fighting side by side. We were one."
Naruto lifted his head and opened his eyes. He raised his hands to his side, palms open upwards, as if encompassing the world. The three men at his back were transfixed, unable to take their eyes off him and the images his words conjured up.
"-So many, so many clans, so many families. It didn't matter. They were strong, they were beautiful. They were heroes, every single one of them. Every single shinobi. They all stepped up to fight for our freedom. It didn't matter that they were strangers, that there was history and blood between them. They rose above it. And on top," he emitted a soft sound, half way between a gasp and a chuckle, "the best. Leaders, for every division, for every company. Incredible people. They worked so hard. They were so strong. The best of every village, working as a whole. They were the hope that kept us going. Symbols to rally under. Generals of war. Kakashi-sensei was one of them."
Naruto breathed out. Kakashi, Minato and Jiraiya almost expected his breath to give birth to his vision. Naruto closed his hands then put his palms flat against the window.
"-There were others too. The ones in-between, the ones behind. The medics. They fought so hard. They gave everything for us. Hundreds of them, keeping us alive. They saved so many. They were everything."
"-Then there was us. Sasuke, Sakura. They were so strong. We were put down again and again. But they got back up, every time. Every time, they were right there with me. They called us the next Sannin."
Jiraiya felt a shiver run up his arms.
Sannin. A title he and his teammates had been given during the Second Shinobi War, so long ago. A title that went hand in hand with pain and suffering, with loss and heartache. With responsibility and hope and crushing expectations. A title Jiraiya both loved and hated with all his being. A title bestowed upon Naruto and his teammates during another war.
There should ever be only one generation of Sannin. There should never be a need for more. And yet, there had been. A team with the power to change the world.
Naruto's hands closed into fists against the glass.
"-But it wasn't enough. Never enough. For everyone we lost, we gained an enemy. Friends and comrades, turned against us. Unyielding, relentless. They would not stop coming. Again and again. They tore through us. Tore through our hearts. How could we fight them? We loved them. They were us. But they were not. They didn't stop, couldn't stop. They could feel everything but they couldn't stop. They suffered so much. They should have been able to rest in peace. They deserved it. They didn't deserve any of what happened."
"-We lost so many we even stopped counting. We couldn't keep track. We couldn't keep up. The only thing we could do was regroup and survive. We lost great men and women. Invaluable people. Little by little, we lost command. Everyone, they tried so hard. We lost Oonoki first. The first of the Kage to fall. He died protecting the Kazekage."
Minato and Jiraiya gasped. Oonoki of the Two Scales was a living legend. One of the last shinobi of who rose at the end of the violent era that had seen the birth of the hidden villages. Oonoki had lived through wars, first as a child, then as a soldier, and a Kage. The old leader was still a man who inspired fear despite his weakening physical strength. That he died in a war was only fitting, a true death for a true warrior. Still, he was one of those men who seemed to be fated to outlive everyone else. Hearing about his demise, even in a different world, was startling.
"-We managed to turn some enemies into allies. Orochimaru, without him, we could not have done it. Hashirama, Tobirama, Father, Hiruzen."
Naruto let his voice die out, vibrating with the power evoked by the memory of the presence of four of the most powerful men to ever live. His familiarity with their names spoke volumes about his own strength and their shared experience.
All three men in the room, Minato included, shifted their gaze to look at the portraits of the Hokages on the wall. Imagining all of them fighting together was mind-blowing. What power they would wield!
Even Minato had trouble imagining himself in this alternate world Naruto was laying out for them. Here, he was real, he was alive. There, he had been the stuff of legends, called upon for the protection of his village even after death. He was put together on the same level as both Senju, legends among men. It was humbling.
"-We had lost the Tsuchikage and Kazekage was out for a while but we had our Hokages. All five of them. We got our reprieve. We regrouped and licked our wounds. We trained. We came up with strategies and plans."
Naruto stopped talking for a while, absorbed in thoughts and memories.
The trio of men around the desk could barely breathe. They could feel the weight of Naruto's words, the heaviness of his war. They could not fathom such a state of things, such a powerful army. Such powerful enemies. Minato almost felt nauseous trying to put himself into Naruto's mind.
Jiraiya's stomach twisted into a painful knot. He had hoped for peace his whole life. Knowing how dark and hopeless things could have turned left a bitter taste in his mouth. How much despair could this world still take?
"-Then the fighting started again. We were tired. So so tired. But they kept on fighting. They were all so brave. They fought with all they had, they gave everything. But we had to burn them all. We couldn't afford to let them be used against us. We had to burn so many we almost burnt ourselves out. Some Katon users couldn't even speak anymore because of their throat!"
Minato and Kakashi fought a wave of nausea as they remembered Naruto's physical reaction to the smell of grilled meat at dinner the day before. Kakashi could almost smell it, the clingy, acrid smell of smoke lodging itself at the back of his mouth.
"-We kept losing people. We lost the Hokages when Orochimaru died. In one go, four of our best fighters. Four of our leaders. Then we lost two more a couple months after that. In just a few days. Tsunade..."
Silent tears ran down his cheeks as he kept talking.
"-She saved so many. She was so strong. She fought so hard."
Jiraiya's breath caught in his throat around a painful lump.
"-Gaara fell trying to protect her body. The last of Suna's Kages. He could never be replaced. Suna shinobi, they were lost without him. His siblings stepped up, but they were killed too."
Tears continued to glide down his cheeks. Although his voice was starting to strain, the underlying steel was still there.
"-I tried, I took on their pain and tried to keep Sunans together. But I had our own soldiers to take care of. I had Konoha to take care of. It didn't matter that I had lost them, my family. With Tsunade gone, they made me the Rokudaime. They trusted me to keep them safe, to take care of them."
For the first time, Naruto's voice broke, heavy with the weight that had been put on his shoulders.
"-I was nineteen! How could I take care of a village I couldn't even get back to?"
Naruto swallowed past his pain and frustration. Past his fears for his people.
Minato didn't bother wiping the tears sliding down his own cheeks or hiding the trembling on his hands.
"-When Suna fell, they had nowhere to go. So we took them in. Of course we did. What else could we do? But Konoha was a tent camp at best. We tried."
Naruto took a shaky breath, regaining his composure.
"-Kurotsuchi was doing the best she could with Iwa. She did an amazing job at keeping them together. She did the best she could with what she had, what we had. But she was no Kage. Not when Oonoki had been in power for so long. She wasn't ready for that. No one was ready for that."
"-There was just not enough of us left. The Kages, I mean. A, Mei and me. Me! I'm not even sure I can be counted as a Kage compared to them. Kakashi was too broken, I couldn't put that on him, I couldn't ask him to do more. I couldn't ask anyone to do it. So I did it. I took care of Suna, and A took care of Iwa with Kurotsuchi. Mei kept taking care of Kiri. She was amazing. She kept us together. With Tsunade gone, she and Sakura were the glue that kept all of us together. She almost made it through, too. We lost her two and a half months ago! Just a few weeks! A few more weeks and she would have made it home..."
Naruto's fist slammed onto the glass window. He sighed, his back still turned to the others. His shoulders dropped.
Silence stretched into the room, heavy and uncomfortable, stifling with lingering suffering.
Kakashi felt completely lost, completely unbalanced. His world had just shifted on its axis. Somehow, his little brother, the person who always always managed to bring the sunshine back in Kakashi's life, his anchor to sanity, was talking about a world where pain was everywhere. His little brother had suffered. He had suffered more deeply than anything Kakashi could possibly imagine. And he had come out on top. Not unscathed or even all right by any stretch of the imagination, Kakashi suspected. But sane and strong. Stronger than Kakashi could possibly ever try to be.
Naruto sighed once more then turned around. He slowly walked back to his chair, eyes downcast and avoiding the others. He let himself fall down on his chair and leaned forward, putting his head into his hands. He raked them through his hair then brought them down slowly, looking at them. They were shaking. He closed them into fists, not taking his unblinking eyes off them.
"-The war ended when I killed Tobi. We didn't win. Nobody did. I was out for four days. No one even knew I had done it. When I woke up, no one knew it was over. It took a few days for the news to spread and for everyone to get ready to leave. There wasn't much to pack, and not enough of us left to do it. I got here on the third day of travel back from the front. You know the rest."
The atmosphere in the office was heavy and thick. It took almost ten minutes for the men to shift.
"-Do you..." Minato had to clear his throat and tried again. "Do you know what happened after you left?
-No. Hagoromo, the Sage of the Six Paths, told me my soul was still on that path too. I will gain back those memories when both paths have unfolded completely. In the meantime, I do not know. When I left them, A and the remaining Kumo nins were walking with us. They were about to head back to Kumo and we were going to continue to Konoha. To rebuild, I guess. It's the only thing we can do. Rebuild and try to move on, to heal."
To heal… The word echoed in the silent office. Would they be able to? Would they be able to heal after such horrors? After so much loss and anguish?
No one said a word when Naruto silently stood up and walked out of the room, eyes still distant and turned towards a world they could barely imagine. The soft click of the door closing behind him did nothing to alleviate the heaviness of the still air in the room.
Minato sighed but said nothing as he leaned back into his chair. After a while, Kakashi stood up and left too.
It was almost in a trance that he reached the Memorial Stone and sat down with his back against it. He stayed there for a few hours before going home to their flat. There, he wordlessly summoned his pack and motioned for them to go pile onto Naruto in his room. The younger man said nothing, but he didn't send the dogs away. Kakashi wouldn't sleep that night. He doubted Naruto would either.
In the office after both younger men had left, Jiraiya finally lifted his gaze to Minato. He felt lost. He could see the pain in his old student's eyes but could do nothing. They could do nothing. Not when the pain Naruto had suffered was caused by something they had no power over, something that didn't even exist for them.
Like the other two before him, the Sage stood up, facing Minato. His voice was rough when he spoke.
"-I'll catch you later."
He wanted to say more, to say something, anything, but he couldn't. The lump in his throat was blocking his words. Minato seemed to understand. He nodded to his old teacher and watched as the man left.
Minato didn't get any work done that day. He stayed seated behind his desk, barely moving at all. He felt his ANBU guards slip back into the room. He felt their surprise and unease at seeing him like that, unmoving for hours, but they didn't say anything. They silently followed him home a few hours later and settled in their usual hiding spots.
That night, in the darkness of their room, Kushina held tightly onto Minato as he cried for a son and a world that had suffered too much.
[Chapter A/N] [not relevant to the story, you don't need to read]
I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I loved writing it.
I don't usually comment on my chapters but this one is a bit of an exception. I really loved writing this one because it really allowed me to explore more of the "Glimpse" background. I love love love "Glimpse" and it has been awesome to be able to revisit it again and expand on it a bit more.
This chapter also allowed me to throw some solid bases for Naruto's character. This is really, for me, one of the most important chapters in the story so far in terms of the impact it'll have on the characters and their interactions. It is a turning point in "The Path". I will say no more on this.
You probably will be able to tell where I started diverging from canon while writing "Glimpse".
Anyways, none of this is really relevant but for once I wanted to share a bit of my feelings about writing.
I'll be in touch soon!
