There was no sun, there was no moon. He wasn't even certain how many years had passed. In fact, it could have been days for all he knew. There was him and this void. She also made no appearance.

What was one to do in such a place? All he could do was wait and think. Be lone for all time.

Naruto thought of his story that he just started, and never got to finish. He had thought a lot about it, even before Kaguya relinquished the power she granted in this dreamworld.

For now, his thoughts didn't seem to carry well with his imagination. Writing it down seemed to work best, imagination was more fluid and directed. Then, he visualized it, acted it out. Now, all he could ever think was in summaries; the landscape and people were shaky, each voice uncertain and repeating, the emotion was missing.

If he got out of here, he wouldn't mind writing it down. It was going to be tale of revenge, of avoiding war and all the silly politics of sending people to die. A personal. It sounded so lame if he had to put it in the summary.

What was he to do?

Naruto thought a lot about Kaguya. What he knew about her, and those he can find out. Everything she said repeated in his head.

What was he to do?

He yelled his heart out. Screaming into the abyss, but there no sound that echoed in the world. It was consumed, drowned, and erased everything he threw at it.

What did she learn? Loneliness was something he never wanted to return too.

All he could do was stir in his thoughts. She was listening, she was always watching.

"Tell me, Kaguya, you're someone, you must fear something in world?" he asked. There was no response, and he repeated it again. Over and over. He might as well annoy the hell out of her until she could take it no longer.

He said a great deal many things. He might've yelled for days or years.

"Tell me Kaguya, with absolute certainty, can you tell me that the ten tails made you into a husk, doing nothing more than follow its bidding? I remember the feeling, the raw hunger it carried, nothing more than an instinct, a need to gather chakra. To be full and whole, and you wanna know what it was? A stupid creature, like a little fucking insect. Is that what you are?"

There was a grasp around his neck, choking him. Furious eyes bored into him, "I am no such thing! How petulant you are,"

"I don't even know the meaning of the word, "he grinned, "Hit a nerve? I told you I was good at pissing people off!"

There was something strange about all this. He felt a vertigo, and he didn't quite understand why he felt that way.

New images came to life. It took a moment to adjust the prospect of up and down existing again. The surroundings of mountains and forests he couldn't recognize. There was the god tree in the distance, the sun behind its visage that casted it's great silhouette across the land.

Then, there was smoke that clouded horizon. A great haze that blanketed the world as far as he can see. It was a land of ash and soot; the world had been set a light.

The warmth of the sun that fell on his face. The cool wind that brushed between his fingers. How the clouds that swept over him made his clothes wet. She crafted detail that he couldn't manage, or that it felt so new he couldn't tell the difference.

Plumes of smoke littered the land, rising into the air that he couldn't tell apart from clouds/. Down below, the remnants of a battle long past. He could smell the death and decay, he could even taste it. It made him uneasy.

"All that war, never ending, and what of now? It has never stopped, a need to kill, it had never changed with you all. Like insects, as you accuse of me. So, all of you might as well be of final use,"

"A goddess, aren't you? You get to choose who dies, which is everyone. How did you ever come to deciding like that? One day, you crawled out of bed, and decided, 'welp I'm gonna fucking kill everything,' God! You piss me off, I think we can share that title, champions of our category,"

"Quiet,"

His mouth disappeared, and he made no noise. What the fuck. Maybe he could make sign language. Shit, if only he knew sign language.

His mouth reappeared, thank her. "Do that again and I win,"

"How so?"

"I get the moral victory duh! You're afraid of what I have to say,"

"Fear you?" her eyes alit with amusement and laughed. It was the single most wonderful sound he had ever heard. He wouldn't mind hearing more.

"Yeah," he smiled. "look at you, laughing, too bad it was totally creepy, and in no way I was trying to be funny,"

"I have no reason to fear you. Anything you say, is worthless."

Yet here she stood, talking, listening.

He would win either way, but he wouldn't want to shut up forever, "You said so yourself, and just like how we're filled with hate, there is no one without fear. Kaguya, you can't be your own person if you don't fear anything,"

She didn't answer, "Once again, you found your mettle,"

It's because of you, he wanted to say. He kept his mouth shut, it was the strangest thing to ever think. How sad. Once, it had been his friends that kept him going. To accomplish a goal that had bequeathed to him. Now, what fueled him was when she visited. All in order to survive.

For now, he's greatest strength was Kaguya, and she would leave him if she found out. Death was better than loneliness.

"Yeah," he smiled. There was another reason too. "I'm guessing this is how the ten tails managed to get to you, during all those years, it slowly withered your resolve into nothing,"

"The only realization that occurred when I held the ten tails was that it's power wasn't sufficient,"

The goddess did fear something after all, under all that concealed emotion. She had said she arrived here, so there were others like her. Did she fear them? Were there other stronger beings than her?

"The Ten Tails preyed on that fear,"

Again, she ignored him. Whatever it was, there was no flash of anger. It seemed, that she also had gathered her resolve.

She stepped close, her hand resting on his cheek. He was shocked at the contact, the intense warmth of her hand. "If you were to pursue longevity, such emotion would not pair well with it,"

"Longevity? Why would I want such a thing?"

"Peace, how should you ever keep it?"

He sighed, "Why do we keeping singing this same song and dance?"

"It will not last,"

He understood people better than her.

"Emotion was what made me strong in the first place," he replied. "Not just love. My anger, my fear, and sadness are what got me here in the first place. If I was anything like you are now, I would have died long ago,"

She had left again. It kept him going until the next time she appeared.

It took a while to register that Kaguya was here in the flesh. How long had she stood there? She stared down on him and said nothing. He couldn't even come up with anything to say, all he could do is stare in wonder.

"Only a century has passed, can you do another nine?"

His heart dropped. No, he couldn't it, was his first thought. These doubts had always come to him, when he had been young, when he was training. He had always opted to ignore it, he wanted to prove it wrong.

He fantasized about giving up. He already knew the word, even thinking about it seemed dangerous. Waboonttha. It had never left his mind once it came from her lips. It dangled in front him, like his favorite food, and little taste and it would be bliss.

If he were to say it, would there be a spark of happiness in her eyes? It was tempting to see, that perhaps, that would be his last sight. He almost cried at the thought. Yeah, she would be happy or maybe not. Other thoughts appeared, each more tantalizing than the last.

He moved his lips, as if to tempt it.

There was something in the distance. He felt it, something foreign and familiar altogether. Something he hadn't felt in a time before he was trapped in here. His gut tingled, the return of a long-lost power.

He felt another shockwave coursing through this darkness.

"Kurama," he whispered.

He sat up, reveling in the feel of his partner. Kurama was trying to break through this illusion to free him. How long had passed in the real world? Seconds? Minutes?

He stared at Kaguya, his opponent, his love. Her relaxed composure was replaced by a wariness, guarded against the surges to keep him within the illusion. He knew that even with Kurama's might, he wouldn't be able to break through.

Right now, at least. She was too prepared.

"I want to know something, Kaguya," he replied. He felt disembodied. Another surge of power, and he felt like he could go on. "Is this how you developed the Infinite Tsukiyomi? For one person, then, you made it better?"

She didn't have to say anything for him to know the answer. The look in her eye said all.

His lips twitched into a smile, "In a morbid way, it's sweet of you. To take the time to make a person's dream come true before they die. As fake as it is, I would have liked to have known you before you were changed by the ten tails,"

Kaguya's eyes narrowed, and he could say the visible confusion present within them. She disappeared again.

He laid down, trying to refamiliarize with Kurama's chakra. He felt traces of it, hanging in the air. There were no more no surges, but he knew it would only be some time until the next one.

Naruto felt the tingling in his tips of his fingers. The anticipations that rolled off him in waves. He knew it, this was the beginning of the end.

Kurama must have only realized that he had been ensnared within her technique. He wouldn't give up so easily. Three surges had reverberated through the illusion, but how much time would pass until the next attempt? There was no sense of time, no sun or clock. Those had been taken away.

It was a good thing he had a lot of time to think about it. Finally, something of worth, something of progress. He had one try, and only that.

His heart beat was something that Kaguya couldn't take away. He counted the beats of his heart, filtered by minute, by hour, by day, week and month. Now, he had the general time frame.

It was about another fifty years before he felt the next surges of Kurama's chakra exploding through. Now, he had to have the perfect heartbeat. He had gotten better with multitasking when he was brought here, with all his attempts to breathe the world to life.

Another fifty years, and he had it down to the second, but he had to make certain, so another fifty years had passed.

Something had to go wrong along the way, and it had been something he had thought about.

She materialized out of from the darkness, with long ashen hair that flowed behind her, her white eyes centered on him. His mind emptied, and his heart started to race. Progress broken, and now he had to account for her appearance. He counted his beats, and it raced twice as fast, and the odd skip.

"Has your answer changed?"

Did she refer to their first conversation? That was a fucking long time ago, "Well I gotta give it to you, no one can stay the same for hundreds of years,"

She was pleased, a slight tug at her lips.

He loved the sight. "Who knows, the end will tell it all. I think that's one thing we got in common, we're both certain that we'll succeed,"

"One of us will fail,"

"The other will win," he finished. He tried to focus, to calm himself as much as he could. "I'll prove to you, that I will last. Such as moments as these, he had to question his sanity. Was that a hint of admiration in her eyes, or was it his yearning to see something like that?

Naruto continued, "My mother once said something to me, about being a Jinchuuriki. I wish someone told you that, so none of this would have happened?"

She looked wary, "That is?"

He was almost let it loose from his lips. "Later, maybe at the end,"

"It can be the end now,"

"Later," he replied. Perhaps he would never know, or she would ever admit that the ten tails influenced her. In the end, it was pure desire on his part to know that she was once human. "I don't think you'd have to build an army, you're strong enough on your own, or maybe just someone to help out,"

"There's no one,"

There was him.