The First Day.
Naruto stared at the white blank sky of the world. He thought of nothing, and he day-dreamt of nothing.
He was alone now. The cold was no longer present, the mountain ranges disappeared. Nothing more than a creation of her will. The world was empty, he laid on nothing. No, maybe he was standing. He looked behind him, and there was nothing but the white, blank slate of this world. A world filled with space.
This was the first day, and he was losing his mind. Nothing was real, after all. Would this be best?
Kaguya had left, a blink and she was gone. But Naruto knew, this was her dominion, she would always be watching.
His thoughts, were likely his own. Though, he wasn't certain. What did she plan to do? What would she do? He supposed, it didn't matter. He had to escape, he had to endure.
Naruto would have escape, but no matter what much chakra he gathered to interrupt this illusion, nothing work.
That was the only thing he could do, other than wait if his comrades could help him.
Would it really be a thousand years?
He shook his head to wipe the thoughts. He placed his hands in a seal to gather chakra, and expunged it. It didn't work, so he tried again. And again, and again, and again, until he could go no longer.
The First Week
He walked the plains. The grass swayed, but there was no wind–unnatural–, but the breeze blew and the world resumed order. The sky was empty and lifeless when a tinge of blue spread into the horizon, and clouds formed and shifted in the air.
He resumed his leisurely stroll, but it was just that, and it wasn't enough. The ground beneath him grew, and his steps went higher to find purchase. He looked toward the steep, and it went forever. He continued, and after some time, his legs began to burn.
Naruto stopped to rest when he could go no longer. He sat, and watched as the sun dipped behind the world. The moon appeared above, and he gazed at the glowing sliver until it disappeared. No matter the time he waited, the burn in his legs had never healed. Gold light broke through the clouds, and it was time to move.
He pressed on in his climb of the never-ending mountain. He ate food when he was hungry, and drank when he was thirsty. No matter how much he rested, the pain in his legs never found relief.
What was Kaguya planning? Why did she give him the ability to shape the world on a whim? He didn't understand it. A goddess watched over him, and it wasn't for the goodness of her heart. There was no divine protection. It was quite the company, and a quiet one.
The pain that he felt, it wasn't real, but the way his tendons burned, it was as every bit as he remembered.
He got tired of this endless climb, and the mountain receded until it was flat. The ground trembled, fell, and was swallowed by golden sands. All he saw were dunes, and the sand blew away at the tips. He wandered the desert for days.
He collapsed, his mouth dry and parched. Lips cracked and bleeding. He crawled through the coarse sand, until he magically came across an oasis. He dipped his head in for water, before he fell inside and dropped to the bottom. Naruto took a breath, and he forgot to drown.
There was just nothing much to do. He didn't have to drink, he didn't have to eat. He ran to distract from his problem. He wished to be exhausted, so became it.
The heavy limbs, the weakness, and how the breaths were always shallow and you couldn't any more air.
Water spilled into his lungs–Exhaustion forgotten–and he was forced to the surface.
The first month
"What the hell is there to do!" He screamed. There was no was echo. "It's all fake!" His voice sounded in the ravines of the jungle.
He was supposed to go a thousand years without seeing another person? When was the last time he spoke a word? Almost a month had passed, hadn't it? There was sweat in his brow from the heat and humidity of the jungle.
"I've been wandering for so damn long in this empty dream, there's nothing for me here.
"Then create."
He turned to see Kaguya. She stood on ice. Clear, clean, and abyssal. In fact, there was nothing anywhere; only ice beneath their feet.
"Create what?" He replied. There was no use fighting her, and nothing he could do would ever hurt her.
"Anything you desire." Her arm extended to him, palm flat against the sky. The stars above twinkled, before colors flared to life. Lights in the sky that shifted every moment of every color. He had heard about this phenomenon, but he had never seen it.
"Why did you give me the ability to do this?"
"Yet, another worthless one." She replied, and her eyes narrowed. "Weakening already? A day, or a year means little to me, but it has not even begun."
"Shut up!" He made her disappear, but she appeared on his right.
"If you do not like such a thing, create your ideal world."
"It'll never be." He closed his eyes, but they were eyes wide shut.
"I hold the true dominion here, or is this your idea of perfection?"
"No, of course not! I have no reason too, this is just all fake. They're nothing at all."
"We share the same beliefs."
"Far from it!" Naruto replied.
"Is there?" Kaguya tilted her head.
What kind of question is that? Kaguya, the cold goddess. It was a fitting name for someone with a lack of basic human understanding. What the hell happened to her?
Or, was she messing with him? He didn't know, but she was like this when he had fought in the real world.
"What are you?" He asked, but she was already gone.
He walked into the wreckage of the building. The wood was black and rotten, moss grew in the dark corners of the room. Grass grew inside and plants in bloom where the sun reached them. A small reflection caught his eye, glass hidden under the cover of the fauna. He found a picture frame, but there was nothing when he turned it over.
He looked up, the decadent room becoming a familiar sight. Another glance at the picture frame showed a photo of Team Seven. He glared at Sasuke, while the other boy was none too impressed. The other two were smiling, Kakashi and Sakura.
Naruto missed them.
The last time he talked was when Kaguya had last approached him, only two encounters so far, nearly a month since he was brought here.
Naruto clambered over a fallen wall to the reach the roof above. He saw everything outside, the overgrown Village of the Hidden Leaf. Trees grew out of houses, moss and other fauna grew from village. He looked down below to the streets, pools of water, and stream had taken over the pedestrian walkway.
A look at the Hokage monument still displayed the five previous Hokage. Perfect, just as he remembered it. Nothing reached or tarnished the image of the five.
This dream was too cruel. He wouldn't wish it upon his worst enemy. No matter how often he said it, nothing was real.
A life of solitude was not possible. He was a month in, and he couldn't possibly see how he could last one thousand years.
Every day in his youth, those days wanting to forgotten in his mind, was dealt trying to find any sort of comfort from the darkness of loneliness. No matter how small or juvenile the attempts he made to find it.
Here he was…alone. This was nothing but a conjuration of his village.
The only certainty, that he could say with utter, absolute resolve was that Kaguya possessed her own will. She –despite the illusory technique–was real; Her ideals, beliefs, were all her own to keep.
He didn't want to create. He didn't want these powers. The people that he hadn't even made would never have their own will, they would be nothing more than puppets.
Then again, what was the use of waiting until the millennium passed? He was certain that Kaguya had her palm to his stomach, her all-killing ash bone primed to kill him the moment he was freed.
He could surrender, or he could die. There was no way out of this.
No.
Never.
He would choose his death, he will not go quietly into the night. This was too defy all Kaguya believed, however inhuman it may be. He had to survive the years he was trapped, and even if the very moment he was freed was death, it would be an act of defiance.
All he had to do, was survive.