"Remember that one time, when I showed you the history of the shinobi?"

She was almost impassive, but there was a twitch of her brow, and her eyes flashed with annoyance. Nothing other than that.

"What do you think of that?" He asked.

"To create something as that, is an abomination,"

He grinned, "Well, it still got you didn't it?"

She didn't look at him, "Ridiculous, and I don't need to explain myself to you. It matters little,"

"Because I'm going to die right? What use do I have for it? Well, what's the use of anything? If that's the case, then you can explain it to me,"

She didn't though, she left.

Not that it was time just yet. That was still years down the line, but the final stretch was the longest yet. His heart beat returned to normal, and he accounted for that time.

Still, this last and only plan of his depended on her. That she would be interested in hearing him out. If she didn't come to him within several minutes, then he would have to wait another time.

He forgotten how much time he had left, and how long he had been here. Now, all there was left to do was look to the future.

Yet, what did that hold for him? He hardly given it any thought, because previously, all that awaited him was death and vain hope of escaping. Now it was slim, but it was far better.

The only thoughts that came to him was that one of them will lose, and one of them will win. To give in to her was to prove that she was right. Failure wasn't an option.

He looked at his hands, they trembled, and his stomach twisted until he could no longer bare to look. He grasped at his heart, and it felt dull and heavy within his chest.

Something wet fell from his cheeks, and a choked sob escaped from him. Was this how it felt then? He couldn't bare to go on without her, it wasn't something he wanted. That was always something he lived by, that he lived only by his friends, and never for himself.

So, he waited, until the beat of heart neared for the end.

"Kaguya," he said. The name slipped out of his lips easily, "You want to know that answer? of what my mother said?"

He wondered if he waited a long while, but it was only several beats of his heart.

She appeared the same as the other times. Like a ghost that appeared in the darkness, but she was brightest thing in the abyss.

"I'm not interested in worthless information,"

Then why did she appear? And why did the first around did she ask to continue. No one was capable of being alone, that was impossible.

"I'll tell you anyway," she looked disinterested, but that was nothing different. "My mother once said, that it was love that kept the tailed beast sealed within us. The love we had for our village, our people, and friends,"

"Is that so?" her eyes narrowed.

"Perhaps if you focused on what you could've protected most, rather than what you feared, you wouldn't be as you are today,"

"Foolish,"

"What's foolish? That you're so caught up in one way, that another one is unspeakable? Better yet, why look one way, when you can look at both?"

She narrowed her eyes, and it was piercing. She didn't speak, so he continued.

"I'm that other way," he stated.

"Can you truly say that?" she asked. "The fear of what will happen to your bonds that continually made you defy me, that is what you fueled you,"

He smiled, "You would be right, but only for a time. I've made a vow, that I would last, and that I would prove to you and whatever these other ones you're afraid of, that the Tentails and some clone army wouldn't be needed,"

"Answer," she demanded.

"So I will," he replied. "Kaguya, I've made a vow to you. The reason I'm still here, is to prove that love wins, and gives you the strength needed to go on, and I can do this forever. Love did that, and I've been defiant all this time. The reason I can do that, is because I love you, I would have given up long ago if it weren't for you."

It was like she froze, for that one moment. Her eyes widened in shock, clear written surprise. If he had to choose a moment to relive forever, it might be this one. Then, it came. Kurama's chakra came exploding forward, a massive wave that Naruto had to sync with the initial impact.

Naruto brought his hands together and put everything he could possibly could into it. Everything, all he had and more, he put in to break this illusion. To return to the real world, and to live and breathe and see light. To see her in the flesh and prove her wrong and his way was right and far better.

She realized her folly, the brief lapse of concentration, but she was too late.

All he could think of was her reaction, what she might've been before the corruption of the Ten Tails. He would have loved to have known that person. If there was any chance to bring for that to happen, then this must end.

The world cracked, shattered. It was like a glass, and he burst through.

He gasped when the air filled his lungs, alien and cold. Her grasp around his neck was warm and tight. She flinched in the real world, her grip loosened around his neck. He struck at her arm, and her fingers came loose. Yet, he already felt the danger of her all-killing ash-bone. He barely managed to avoid it, as he felt the danger pass by the hair of his neck.

He jumped away a safe distance and kept a careful eye. There was a noticeable dip in her chakra, as endless as it seemed at first. How much chakra did that use? Nothing else mattered, there was only her.

It was only a passing thought. The forefront of his mind was other things about her, and about now. This was going too well? A fantasy, that all of this was another illusion.

The air was different, far from the one he made his own within the technique. It was like the one she made for him.

"Naruto, are you okay?" a voice asked. He didn't even recognize the voice, and the name was barely on his lips. Within his soul, confined within the seal, the fox stared.

"Kurama?" another voice that he didn't control. "Is this real?"

"Of course, it is! How long were you in there?" Kurama said. "Your chakra, it's different, I can tell,"

He grinned, in reassurance to Kurama. Although, it was an expected response. Of course there would be a reassurance that everything was real. "Yeah, and, I've been there for a long while,"

"Can you go on?"

"Is there even a choice?" he asked. "Either way, I don't plan on losing, if that's what you're worried about,"

Outside, some distance away from Kaguya. Naruto fell to his knee, but he couldn't relax too much. Getting out of that technique took a lot out of him. Though, Kaguya hadn't moved either. The slight movement of her shoulders, and the rise and fall of her chest; it took something out of her too.

Naruto sensed several others that approached from behind. He knew that they weren't enemies, and he just remembered that were others here. He couldn't put their voices he couldn't even put to their faces.

"I noticed your chakra was disrupted, but it looks like you're okay,"

"Can you go on?"

"There's no time to talk," Sasuke said. "We must focus on the enemy, on my lead,"

Naruto utilized Kurama's chakra and he was as ready as he could ever be. He rose, and he stared at Kaguya who had readied herself too.

"Let's go," Sasuke said.

He didn't quite know how long it lasted. It felt so short, each attack deflected or nullified. It felt so short, he was used to years of idleness. Everything felt so insignificant, and he couldn't help those feelings because it came natural like breathing. His perception of time was skewed, and he still didn't quite believe that he was in the real world. Was this reality? The only thing he knew for certain, Kaguya was real.

He thought of a solution, and there were so few.

Naruto wouldn't fail, fake or otherwise. It was only at the end, when he realized which reality that he was in. Her hand pointed at him, a flash of bone, and he resisted moving. Only when he had the sealing technique applied on Kaguya.

He felt it pierce him. It was like a needle, a small sharp sting. His senses screamed at him, but he calmed it down. Kaguya didn't know how it felt to be hit by her All-Killing Ash Bone.

"Well, it was real all along," he muttered. He couldn't help but laugh. This wasn't a paradise. It shouldn't have come to this.

Kaguya's formed into a look a pure shock, and she trembled at the effects of the sealing. He wished he knew her thoughts, that he didn't have to go on by his guesses.

He felt the tears that fell, and they tickled his cheeks as they trickled down. He could at least do one last thing. "Well, I win,"

"You fool," Kaguya said. Her mouth moved, but he couldn't hear her.

He can finally sleep.

He wasn't sure whether he should proceed. Something kept him here, but another drew him away. A sense of warmth, and a shade of cold. To move forward, or to stay forever.

Perhaps, what felt like lifetimes and lifetimes ago, he would have hated that fact. That he was gone forever from the living and left here. Yet, as time never halted, there was change. He died, and he was okay with it.

Naruto waited. For what, he didn't quite know, but he stood and waited. Like when he was in the gaping abyss, there was nothing here. He was used to it.

Of course, he remembered what he had done right before he died. So there was other thing that kept him here, that he was drawn too like a moth to flame. Kaguya. She sat, her dress and hair that spread over the ground that didn't exist. An empty space.

"A fool, with a foolish promise," she muttered.

"The fool who was right," he replied. "does that even make sense?"

The person who killed him. The person he loved. Such a terrible one. Was love chosen? Or was just natural as breathing?

"Well, you lost,"

"Is that correct?" she replied. "I am immortal, after all,"

"It's so simple, a fool can understand it. You failed, but will you try again? Fail until you succeed, and it didn't work out this time,"

She shook her head, "Why did you come here?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"This is not a place for you,"

He looked around the black, never ending dark. "This doesn't seem a place for you either,"

She didn't look at him, but she was angered. "Leave, go,"

Naruto looked around some more, once the call had been inviting, but it no longer seemed so. There, beyond this place between life and death, lay his mother and all those who had died. "And, why should I?"

"You are dead, and I am not," Kaguya looked at him then. "I will never die, so I can never leave,"

What a terrible curse. To never go beyond, to be here for all eternity.

"If you're sealed forever, then you're as good as dead. I don't think I'm going anywhere,"

Their only company was the dark, and each other, but he was used to this. He sat too, and he crossed his legs and relaxed. The weight fell off his shoulders. Did he choose to die? or was it something that he had to do to seal her away.

"You will leave," she said. "Perhaps today, perhaps the next,"

"In here? There is no today, or tomorrow," he replied. Like all those days in the darkness. "So, I'll be here forever,"

She looked at him but said nothing. Though, he knew there was a question.

"I like to think that true love lasts forever," he said.

"You would be wrong," she said, and for once, weakly. Or maybe that was his wish, and he imagined it. Man, he got fucked up during his time in her technique.

"I promise that I'll never leave," he said. "I did prove you wrong, didn't I?"

"No, you didn't, defeating those from my clan isn't possible anymore,"

"Then I guess I have to update my promise. A place without you, is not a place I'd be for long," he replied. Her eyes darted away.

"Perhaps you're correct, that the beast withered me away," she confessed. "Yet, I still do not care for all those humans,"

His lips trembled, and his voice felt coarse. He was crying a lot, these emotions felt powerful, far better than the hatred and frustration, and of feeling hopeless and alone,"Well, you have time to make it up, should we ever get out of here,"

"I have no desire to do so,"

"Not them," he said. "Make it up to me, for all these lonely centuries,"

He didn't want to be alone anymore.

Kaguya stared, almost pitiful. "You're reminding me of what love must have felt once,"

She said nothing else, but she closed her eyes and didn't move. For once, he felt happy.

A/N: It ain't done btw.