Hello again, everyone, and welcome to Chapter 9. Let me say now that it's nothing short of wild that despite the fact I've only had the rewritten story out for three and a half months and only nine chapters have been posted as of now, the story has over 10,000 views! Never did I think a fanfiction idea put to paper by my own hand would garner this much attention, and I thank everyone who's stuck with me so far. Here's to a good story for you guys to read moving forward!
A little bit of math is done behind the scenes in this chapter to present how long Naruto's undergone training that isn't strictly physical (which really isn't all that necessary, though could do with a good spice-up), so here are the initial values I needed to get what I got. If anyone feels what resulted in the chapter is wrong, you're free to plug in these numbers and run your own calculations.
To figure out how long Naruto would 'sleep' to do the first set of calculations, I simply took the worldwide average, which is about 9.5 hours daily. The second set of calculations assumes Naruto spends one hour out of the nine and a half 'sleeping' doing Realm training inside Hagoromo's Tsukuyomi.
Chapter 9: The Power of Loss
Tuesday, October 29th, CCY 3380, Afternoon
"Ms. Minuette," Professor Cradle called Minuette to the front to receive her graded midterm test and find out her performance. It wasn't just her, but the entire class period was stressed out over what their grades were. Professor Cradle's lessons might have been fun and engaging, but her exams really made you work for your points and tested your attention and patience to their limits.
Minuette walked to the table where Naruto and her friend Lemon Hearts were sat and retook her empty chair before glancing at her grade. Her face fell as she read her grade - only a sixty-two percent of one hundred. She'd missed twenty-four questions, it seemed, which really sucked. Naruto glanced over at her paper, noticing the grade, and leaned in to comfort the distraught young woman, as Lemon Hearts was called up to receive her grade next. "Hey, all you have to do is keep studying hard and push to do better on the next test. You know that, right? Besides, Ms. Cradle did say the threshold for passing this was only a fifty-three."
"Yeah, I guess you're right, but it still hurts knowing I didn't at least make it to seventy. I thought I was more prepared for this one, but I guess not," Minuette told Naruto, sighing in disappointment at her low grade. "I just hope Lemon didn't get over a seventy, so she can rub it in my face again."
"Hey, you know just like Twilight, Lemon is a bit of an overachiever. Don't let what she says get to you. Everyone does things in their own unique way." Naruto patted Minuette on the shoulder.
Minuette didn't move for a second, but then started snickering under her breath. "You're one to talk, Mr. I Can Be Everywhere At Once."
"Hey, I only come in one size - thousands. Why do you think I'm able to handle this kind of workload so easily? I am literally a one-man tutoring seminar, it's basically my job at this point." Naruto fired back, before the two of them glanced up as Lemon sat down in her chair, graded exam in hand. "So, how'd you do, Citrus?"
"Ugh, when will you stop calling me that?!" Lemon fumed at Naruto's nickname for her, as Professor Cradle began calling up other students to get their own scores.
"Just as soon as you acknowledge I'm the better student between the two of us."
"Uh-uh, not happening, buster! I will never admit defeat!" Lemon proudly exclaimed, before shrinking slightly in her seat as some of the other students stared at her, realizing she might have said that a little too loud. She scratched the back of her head in embarrassment.
"Well, let's see your score." Naruto encouraged. Lemon showed the two her own paper, and Naruto winced at the grade: sixty-eight percent. "Hey, what gives? You usually do quite a bit better under pressure. I expected you to at least get a seventy."
"I honestly have no idea. I really thought I had this one in the bag." Lemon shrugged her shoulders and proceeded to use her seat as a recliner, regretting her mistake three seconds later as she nursed her bruised head from her position on the floor.
"Now what has the Professor told you about that, Lemon Hearts? That's the third time this month in this class alone!" Minuette lectured the embarrassed unicorn, who had the wherewithal to apologize, albeit quietly.
"And finally, Mr. Uzumaki." Professor Cradle called Naruto up to receive his exam back, and he smiled in content as he returned to the table and plopped the paper on the wood.
"What, ninety-two percent?! But how?!" Needless to say, Lemon was not happy at having being beaten to second place yet again, by one of her best friends, no less. "Why do you always have to have the second-best score?" Naruto promptly pointed to Hagoromo, who was busy discussing something with Žiara, though Naruto did not bother to tune in on their conversation. Without even being prompted, Hagoromo's exam paper was raised into the air so that Minuette and Lemon Hearts could see it and gauge its score, and neither were surprised to find a grade of one hundred four percent was the result. Hagoromo not only grasped everything he was presented perfectly, he was able to see beyond the surface level and find reasons for each answer that left every teacher he had taken an exam with floored at his reasoning and depth of understanding, and as a result, the middle-aged man always scored over one hundred percent on everything, setting a precedent that wasn't likely to be bested for the next several tens of millenia, at least. The man's highest score on anything assigned or done on campus had been an astounding one hundred sixty-three, and he still hadn't even divulged to Naruto why that grade was so high.
Lemon turned back to Naruto, still pouting at having lost her self-imposed academic competition yet again. Naruto noticed this, and patted her on the back. "Hey, chill out. There's always tomorrow. Besides, this week is midterms, so you've still got tomorrow and Thursday to try again." Contrary to Naruto's intentions, Lemon only pouted harder and turned away from him. Naruto shrugged at his failed attempt. "Alright then, suit yourself."
"Alright, well-done to everyone who passed the midterm today, class, and to those who didn't, remember to keep working hard and you'll get there. Now, for tomorrow, we'll be going over the photosynthesis process of plants in more detail. Dismissed."
As the class packed up to leave, Hagoromo approached Naruto as the group gathered to leave class. "Naruto, I must perform a duty requested by the Princess. In the meanwhile, I shall leave your training to Žiara. Do not hesitate to ask her any of the same questions you would have come to me about."
"Well, before you head out, is there anything you can tell me about what part of my training is next?"
"Unfortunately, I am required immediately by the Princess. This was the last class I was able to reasonably attend. Žiara will inform you of tonight's training herself. I must depart for now, and I will rejoin you soon." Before Naruto could ask another question, Hagoromo used his Rinnegan to open a portal straight to the castle, and walked through, closing it behind him.
Son Goku stepped beside Naruto on his left. "Well, not entirely unexpected. Even before he had started reincarnating. we didn't get much visiting time because the Old Man was always busy doing this or that. In a way, I'm glad to see that some things still haven't changed."
"Yeah, I guess you've got a point. Hey, I wonder if the Lieutenant would allow us to use the training grounds for another taijutsu spar?"
Son Goku shrugged his shoulders to say he didn't mind. Since he and Naruto had the same class next period, and said class wouldn't start for forty-five minutes, he had more than enough time to kill. "Sure, I could use a good workout right about now anyway. Haven't had a chance to beat anything up all month."
"Hey, that's on you. Should've known it wasn't a good idea to go smashing the Guard's training dummies around like you did." The two chatted back and forth as they headed off-campus and toward the palace to the Guard training barracks.
The two were ready and raring to go. Son Goku stood in his relaxed stance with one hand in his coat pocket and the other out and clenched into a fist. Naruto stood with his left foot out in front of him and his right hand pointed like a spear forward, in a manner reminiscent of the Gentle Fist stance.
"And... begin!" The Guard that had decided to referee the match called out from the sidelines. Naruto and Son Goku tensed immediately, carefully examining the other's stance and guard for any exploitable weaknesses. This continued for a few more seconds, before the two simultaneously lunged at each other.
Son Goku launched his fist at Naruto's head, but the attack never made contact, as Naruto struck the backside of his wrist joint upward to deflect the attack, then retaliated with a leg sweep that Son quickly jumped over. The resulting kick Naruto threw into the air to knock Son off balance was caught in one hand as he landed on the ground.
Son spun around and threw Naruto to the other side of the ring, and Naruto managed to catch himself before he could go out of bounds. He charged back again, this time executing a perfectly-timed slide under Son's flying leg, and right as he passed under, Naruto saw his opportunity.
He grabbed Son's leg before he could return it to the ground and used his momentum to send Son tumbling forward into the dirt. Before Son could recover and get back on his feet, Naruto's hand was at his throat.
"One-zero, favor Naruto." The Guard said at witnessing Naruto's victory, as the two got back up and returned to their sides and stances. "And... begin!" This time, Son dropped all pretense of patience and charged right in, lunging forward with a palm strike that would have cracked Naruto's nose, if not for Naruto having swiftly sidestepped the attack. Son did not falter in the slightest, pivoting on his heel and lunging again, which made Naruto need to dodge again.
This continued three more times, before Naruto attempted to, instead of dodging, deflect the strike and move inside Son's guard, which turned out to be a very bad move, as Naruto found himself on the ground, courtesy of Son's knee being driven into his gut. He immediately dispersed into smoke, revealing that the Naruto Son had been fighting had been a clone. Son chuckled as Naruto sent out another Clone from his position at the top of the barracks tower.
"One-one." The two quickly returned to their stances. "And... begin!" This time, before Son could charge in for an aggressive finish, Naruto jumped up and stuck his leg out, like he was trying to perform a dive kick. Son grabbed the outstretched ankle and went to slam him into the ground, and Naruto smirked.
Naruto slammed his hands on the ground and used the momentum to pivot around, bringing his body towards Son, but he wasn't ready for a sudden fist to smash into his face from what he thought was an open guard. The clone saw the sky shortly and harshly landed on the ground, dispelling on contact.
"Two-one, favor Son Goku. Match point." This time, Naruto jumped down from the top of the tower and landed in his stance next to Son. "And... begin!" Naruto did not feel like making any concessions today, and immediately charged at Son with a flurry of punches which the muscular man quickly dodged or deflected.
Son tried to lash out with a kick, but Naruto dodged, and the resulting punch made no contact as the leg had been pulled back to its original position too fast to feel anything but a slight disturbance of wind. That same leg then went to stomp on Naruto's feet, and Naruto jumped up, deftly spinning in midair to avoid the nasty backhand Son sent. He shot his hand out to push himself off Son's massive arm as it passed by under him and into the air, spinning and doing a double back flip before safely landing on the ground, back in his original stance.
Naruto was forced to immediately deflect a kick Son sent his way, the man having been intent on giving Naruto no room or time to breathe. Naruto rolled under and just barely managed to avoid the improvised axe kick that slammed into the ground, causing a slight tremor in the immediate radius and kicking up some loose dirt. Naruto leaned backward at an almost impossible angle to dodge the resulting kick Son sent back at him with the same leg, and Naruto hit the outstretched limb behind the knee joint and kicking his leg out to buckle Son's other leg, sending him to the ground with a curse.
"Two-two." The two once again returned to their stances. At this point, a few Sergeants had brought some of the new recruits out from the barracks to observe the sparring match, and Shukaku had also shown up at some point, his trademark bloodthirsty grin on his face. "And... begin!"
Neither fighter registered the presence of the various other people as they charged at each other again. This time, two fists were sent out, and two fists were blocked. Naruto then checked a kick Son tried to use to buckle his knees, before freeing his arm from Son's grasp and rolling back into his original stance. Son charged ahead and tried to perform a football kick, but Naruto used his momentum against him, and threw his leg upward so Son lost his balance and swiftly found himself nursing a slight headache and staring up at the sky. Before Naruto could claim his victory, though, Son went for a leg sweep that knocked the surprised teen off his feet.
Naruto barely had time to roll to the side before Son's back-handed fist smashed into the ground where his head had been. He used his hands to spring back up, and managed to use his arms to block Son's forward swing as the man picked himself up off the ground. Though Naruto blocked the attack, the momentum carried him stumbling back a few steps.
Naruto barely had time to recover before Son was upon him again, and he found himself deflecting a series of punches that probably would have left marks if the last one hadn't already. Naruto finally saw another opportunity as one of Son's inbound hooks came in with an arc slightly too wide, and he sidestepped the attack, letting it slip by harmlessly. Naruto then used Son's shoulder to hurl himself into the air, simultaneously allowing him to avoid getting backhanded again, and he spun in the air a couple times before lashing out with a kick that hit Son in the back of the head with a sharp report, sending the man to one knee. Naruto landed on the ground, though not in his original stance.
"Three-two, favor Naruto. Match point." The two returned to their stances, and at this point, many of the Guard recruits were cheering for one side or the other. The Sergeants did not bother reining them in either, and were placing bets on who would win the match. Twilight had even wandered in to watch, and was cheering Naruto on from the sidelines. "And... begin!"
This time, Naruto shifted into a stance that would allow him to strike harder and faster, but sacrifice a bit of his mobility, and charged at Son first. He dodged the kick to his face and did the same thing he'd done earlier, sending Son tumbling backward to the ground. This time, Naruto lunged his hand out, but hit nothing but dirt, as Son had already moved his head out of the way of the attack. Naruto had to use both hands to block a rather vicious punch Son threw, and the momentum of the attack carried him into the air. Son tried to use the opportunity to land a midair kick, but Naruto canceled it with his own, using Son's heel as a springboard to catapult himself into the air and away from the man.
Naruto landed deftly on his feet, but quickly had to sidestep Son attempting to smash him into paste from the air, and the man hit the ground so hard, his fists left a small crater on impact. Naruto went to land a kick to Son's stomach, but his danger sense went off and he did a running front flip right before he would have tried the kick, avoiding the punch that was now flying under him and kicking Son's back, sending him into the ground. Naruto landed in his stance, a thin sheen of sweat covering his forehead and face.
"Four-two. The victor of the sparring match is Naruto!" Son got up, and the two approached each other in the center of the ring, locking their fingers together in the Seal of Reconciliation, as the audience they had amassed cheered in light of Naruto's victory.
Twilight ran up to the two, visibly excited and anxious. "That was awesome, you guys! I didn't know you knew how to fight so well! I could tell the Sergeants were impressed with your technique and execution!"
Naruto chuckled. "Thanks, Twilight, though they won't be getting any secrets out of us. Hagoromo said we should only teach or tell about our style of taijutsu to those we trust." Son nodded.
"Well, I think it's about time we headed back to the campus. Class should be starting in a few minutes." Son said. Naruto nodded, taking two hand towels out of one of his sealing scrolls and passing one to him, and both quickly dried themselves off as they walked back to CUA, Twilight hot on their heels.
Peak of Mt. Canterhorn - Evening
Hagoromo and Celestia sat on an outcropping of rock near the summit of the mountain, and Hagoromo stared up at the moon. It wouldn't be hard to tell for anyone who'd called themselves a sensor that Hagoromo was getting ready to do something. Celestia turned to him. "So can you please explain again why you must travel to the moon? I'm afraid I can't quite grasp."
Hagoromo turned to Celestia. "Because, from what I have gathered regarding our circumstances, Convergence directed our group to this world, which, as I've looked beyond the surface, seems to be an alternate yet identical version of our own. And, for reasons I cannot yet fathom, this is also somehow set in the past compared to our own space. I am certain of this fact because I can sense my younger brother's chakra on the surface of the moon."
Celestia blew some of her hair back and let out a long sigh. "Well, if you must visit him, as you say you're going to do, when do you plan on returning? If what my Lieutenant has told me is true, I will have great need of your wisdom and experience in the future."
"I will only be gone until morning. My business with my brother will have to be rather short, otherwise I believe weeks would pass before I'd find myself on solid Earth - or in this case Equus - ground again."
"And how again are you going to be able to actually not die?"
Hagoromo chuckled. It seemed Celestia was like Madara in a way; always double and triple-checking everything to make absolutely certain she understood whatever was presented in front of her. "As I've stated before, the Otsutsuki clan is not actually human. The best way to describe us is being born of the stars themselves. As such, our race is capable of surviving in a vacuum. The moon's environment, while deadly to yours and likely the rest of the species on this world, proves harmless to my brother and I."
Celestia nodded. "I can understand all that, but how did you factor your training Naruto into this? From what you've told me, you usually cast a spell on him to allow him to train for even longer periods of subjective time."
"That has already been taken care of. Žiara and I discovered that Tsukuyomi's powers exclusively do not belong to the Sharingan, rather, they are etched into the very fabric and nature of genjutsu itself. The Sharingan was simply the exceedingly easiest medium with which to access this mental restriction or acceleration of time. We developed a jutsu, which I will simply refer to as Time Dilation, whereupon we can manipulate the target's mind and slow down the body's processes, which allow us to control the flow of time inside their mind. It is also very effective, but to an overly perfect degree.
"I had Žiara cast the jutsu on myself to test its potency, and in the illusion, ten years passed by in the space of a second. If I was not of the Otsutsuki or gifted with such a resilient and durable mental capacity, I likely would not be standing here."
"That sounds very dangerous. I trust you were able to correct that unforeseen issue?"
Hagoromo nodded. "By the same token that we created the jutsu, the only adjustment that was required was a shift in the illusion that activated a greater portion of the brain that normally is not used in any capacity, which allowed the target to withstand the effects much more, though not nearly to the degree that the jutsu, at full potency, can be used as a reliable training method. Previously, as confirmed by tests run on myself, a normal mind could not process information that was accelerated at a factor of more than two hundred fifty-nine thousand, two hundred to one, which means any more than three days of training, and the mind would be lost to neural damage. After correcting the issue, however, the survivable potency of the jutsu is now two months to one second, which allows for an even greater span of training time than Tsukuyomi itself accounts for."
Celestia nodded, and took a step back. "Well, since obviously you've everything squared away, I wish you luck in your journey, as well as a safe return."
"And a good evening to you as well, Princess." Hagoromo tapped the ground with his staff three times and flared the power of the Rinnegan, and a portal sprang into existence in front of him, the image on the other side the moon's landscape, with a lone man standing near the horizon of the image. Hagoromo stepped through the portal and it closed behind him, leaving Celestia to return to her quarters for the night.
Realm of the Six Paths
Naruto stood on top of a stone platform he'd created, meditating to gain further control of the mental portion of his chakra. It could be argued that his acquiring knowledge and sharpening his wit on anything and everything he could over the subjective span of eight years and four months inside the Realm, even longer considering the times he would train with Hagoromo under Tsukuyomi, would have already sharpened his mental skills to an excessive degree, but in the world they were now residents of, there was so much new knowledge that simply, for one reason or another, didn't exist backon his homeworld. And he'd always remember one of Iruka's most important lessons regarding chakra, in that it's split into two separate portions, the physical and spiritual, and that while the physical side of chakra was improved by training and gaining experience through battle, the spiritual side was improved through usage of the mind to perform ever-increasingly complex tasks, which would, in turn, improve one's mental fortitude, and help promote the balance between the two halves.
This, in turn, shot up his already titanic reserves like no one believed. Two to five thousand Shadow Clones was now a drop in the bucket, though the primary reason that he hadn't used much chakra in the last few months was because the exponential increase in his reserves meant an equally exponential decrease in his control, which left him struggling to get back to where he was. He had finally managed to regain enough of his control in the last week or so to cast most B and C-rank jutsu with the same skill he once did. But of course, adequate control wasn't what Naruto was interested in, not anymore. Maybe the old him would have stopped once he'd hit the point he became practically unbeatable, but this Naruto, now by all means a devout scholar, only wanted perfection, and that meant controlling this planet-sized ocean with an eyedropper, at least.
Of course, control at his massive scale was almost impossibly difficult to attain without creating some new way to practice the control, as his passable at best control had to be attained with just short of one point nine subjective millenia of training inside Tsukuyomi. Naruto, as a result, had grown mentally wise beyond his years, and Hagoromo had stopped putting him through his academic paces back at the beginning of the month because even with the illusion affecting his state of mind, Naruto had attained one hundred percent almost without even trying.
Naruto was brought out of his meditation by a shift in the Realm which signified Žiara's arrival. Naruto looked up to find her standing in front of him. "Žiara-sensei."
"The training you will undergo during this phase will not related to chakra, nor will it be related to Ninshu. Hagoromo has departed to make an important visit, and in the meantime, he has elected to make the subject of tonight's training a secret. I will not be divulging any information. Rather, we will just jump in headfirst. Is that okay with you?"
"Yes, Žiara-sensei!" Naruto immediately called out.
"Good, then we can begin. Before we begin, I do have to tell you that the way we will be training this phase is new. Hagoromo and I have just finished developing and enhancing a technique that allows us to project illusions that have the same functionality as the Tsukuyomi of the Sharingan, so Hagoromo will no longer be necessary for you to perform your illusion training. Your phases will now be twenty times longer than they were before. Instead of three days per casting of the illusion each second, we've streamlined the process so it is continuous and the illusion stays active as long as physical contact is maintained, as well as the illusion of the acceleration of time increasing to sixty days per second that passes in the Realm."
Naruto's eyebrows shot up in surprise. A technique that improved on the shortcomings of the Tsukuyomi, not the least of which was its limitation of only being accessible to those who possessed the Mangekyo Sharingan, was something to be respected and revered, and had to have taken a very long and arduous process to create.
"That having been said, let us begin." Žiara placed her hands on Naruto's shoulders, staring into his eyes, and called out, "Time Dilation!"
Time Void
First, Naruto fell unconscious. Then, it suddenly felt as if part of him was missing, and his chakra was suddenly back to the point it was when he'd nearly died. He looked around stupidly, feeling like something wasn't adding up, watching as the unknown place he found himself in slowly began taking shape. Suddenly, he felt something shift inside him.
Outside the Void, Žiara was now smiling as a result of something she couldn't really place her finger on, while she waited for Naruto to wake up in the next half-second. 'Good, the changes are already affecting him. Hagoromo, it seems was right; this fine young man had Otsutsuki roots in his blood, they just needed the right motivation to be awakened, since he wasn't born either a Hyuga or an Uchiha.'
Naruto suddenly found himself in what looked like the crater of Konoha after his battle with Pein had really started ramping up. He looked to the edge of the crater, where he saw Tsunade being tended to by Katsuyu, her primary summon, and what were once his own toad summons, and looked in the other direction and saw a slightly younger him pinned to the ground. He winced as he remembered that bit, but there was a feeling he couldn't place that it was all wrong, that something was missing.
Unbeknownst to him, his mind working overtime to overcome the limitations Žiara's one-time-use version of Time Dilation had placed on it had resulted in two barriers to Naruto's spiritual growth being broken, barriers which had seen over fifteen hundred subjective years worth of work given no benefit, and as he looked on, ignorant to the changes happening in his own brain, his ocean-blue eyes were replaced, the left one by a veinless Byakugan, and the right by a six-tomoe Sharingan.
He glanced to the left, and suddenly found his west-facing field of vision had expanded somehow, though he chalked it up to being a side effect of him suddenly being in what seemed the past and moved on. Right before he was about to leap out of the crater and move to the outer ring of what was left of Konoha, something in his mind clicked, and his head shot to the one major detail of what had become of the battle thus far he'd somehow missed - Hinata lying motionless mere feet from the other him.
In that moment, time itself seemed to stop around him, and Hinata got up off the ground and started walking toward him, eyes set in a mask of determination he hadn't ever remembered seeing from her. "You..."
"M.. Me?" Naruto was flabbergasted. What the actual fuck was going on here? He slowly stepped back as Hinata continued walking toward him, but soon he found himself backed against a stone slab, a remnant of one of Konoha's buildings. Suddenly, Hinata was in front of him, and he was unnerved by the stare she was giving him. Shocked as he was, and confused as to what was happening, he didn't notice the danger until it was already too late, and he coughed blood from a kunai having been thrust into his stomach, as the world around him, and everything that had been made substance faded away, leaving just him and Hinata... or whatever this world's version of her was.
The wound in his stomach also didn't seem to close, and he fell to the ground, his body slowly going numb. Damn... am I going to die...?
Suddenly, he found himself back against the slab, though he couldn't remember what was going on. Hinata was suddenly in front of him, and his instincts screaming at him to move out of the way were the only thing that kept him from getting unknowingly skewered a second time. "Hinata, what's gotten into you? What's going on here?"
"What happened to becoming Hokage?"
Naruto froze, and his instincts screamed at him to leap out of the way as Hinata threw a shuriken right at his neck. "What are you talking about?" He was forced to jump away inside the white void, but Hinata just pursued him at the same pace. In fact, he noticed the more he tried to avoid Hinata's attacks, the faster she got and the closer each hit got to landing. He quickly realized that his only choice was to fight, but it was something that constricted his heart.
He blocked the attack and tried to throw a punch back at her to get her away, but she dodged the attack almost faster than he could see. "What happened to bringing Sasuke back?"
Naruto froze in shock, and was blasted across the void by Hinata's next attack, a vicious jab to the face. He could feel the rage at that comment spilling over, and he charged, full speed, to attack- then got blasted by an Air Palm, sending him flying right back.
Naruto was downright furious now. No one had ever doubted his ability to battle Sasuke. On even ground, he was the only one that ever could. To have his failure, as well as the subsequent extinction of his entire race, thrown in his face in such an unrepentant and disrespectful manner, to make a mockery of his sacrifices in said attempt, had pushed him way past the edge. Only this time, he didn't have Kurama inside him, and was left with only his own power, which, despite the fact he instinctually knew he didn't have it, didn't stop him in the slightest from lunging at Hinata, fully intent on killing her.
Žiara frowned as she watched his internal mental struggle. 'Come on, Naruto. I know you can overcome this. You've made it this far already, so please, prove me right. Show me my faith wasn't misplaced.'
Hinata blocked his attack and moved in, closing multiple tenketsu, causing Naruto to cough up some blood as he fell to his knees on the ground. He tried to force his tenketsu back open using Kurama's chakra, before he remembered that Kurama wasn't sealed inside him anymore. He forced himself back up, and stared at Hinata as she stopped right in front of him. "Tell me, Naruto... why did you lie to us?"
"What... what are you-" Naruto coughed up more blood as he tried to speak through his no doubt grievous internal injuries. "-talking about? I never lied to anyone!"
"Then explain why we're all dead. Explain that. We trusted you, and you failed ALL OF US!"
"NO I DIDN'T!" Tears were falling now, as Naruto began to feel again the grief of having failed everyone. "I thought you of all people would understand..." He punched the nonexistent ground in his sorrow, unaware of what was going on outside his mind. "I tried the best I could! I gave it everything I had!"
"Then why?! Why was Sasuke the one to walk away from that battle instead of you? We're all dead because of you!" The way her Byakugan flared out as she asked that question probably could have intimidated Pein, if only for a second.
"Because..." Naruto was not one to ever admit defeat. Even if he was horribly outclassed, he got back up and did his damn best to find another way to tackle the problem. Here, though, as he was faced directly with the reality that the young woman standing in front of him was just one of those people who'd died as a result of his failure, he did something he'd found inconceivable for the first time in his life.
"...because I wasn't strong enough..."
He admitted defeat.
Unbeknownst to him, Hinata had been slowly moving in for the finishing blow. Unfortunately for her, stricken with grief and sorrow as Naruto's mind was, having to finally deal directly with the consequences of his defeat, his instincts controlled his body without any mental input whatsoever. In an instant, both of Naruto's hands shot forward, one catching Hinata's kunai-wielding hand before it could commit the deed, the other being enveloped in a blade of pure chakra that shot through her stomach.
Hinata's coughing up blood brought Naruto back to reality, and he looked up at her only to discover what he'd done. "Oh no! No, no no no no no no no no no..."
Hinata coughed up more blood as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Don't dwell... on the past, Naruto..."
"What?! You... you know I can't do that! Not after all this..." Naruto cried into her shoulder as she started rubbing circles on his back, slowly feeling the strength leave her.
"Look... at me." Hinata coughed blood again, then stared right into Naruto's eyes. "You have to be... strong. If not... for me... or for your friends... then for your new life..."
"I will... I swear..." Naruto barely held back his grief, trying to hold himself together while Hinata was still there.
"Promise... me..." Hinata struggled to get out through the blood and the pain. "Promise me that... you'll come back... to your home one day... Even if... we're not there..."
"I will... I promise..." Naruto could feel the life leave Hinata as her grasp went limp, and he laid her on the ground. "Dammit... Dammit! DAMMIT!" Having, in a sense, witnessed and been part of one of his friends' deaths, now finally truly understanding just how dire the consequences of his failure, and having admitted defeat, the dam on Naruto's grief broke at last, and he let out an ear-piercing scream of sorrow toward the sky as Hinata's body began to disintegrate and disappear, leaving what some would call a broken man.
An unknown period of time later, after all the tears had been exhausted and all the grief had dulled into numbness, Naruto wiped his eyes as he slowly stood up. "I swear to you... Hinata... Sakura... Kakashi... Everyone... I'm going to do everything it takes to get stronger, for the sake of it if nothing else. If this is the cost I pay for defeat, I swear on my life, and on my honor, that I'll never lose again." The entire world was swallowed in darkness as the jutsu that had brought Naruto's consciousness into this plane ended.
Realm of the Six Paths
Žiara, having cried quite a lot herself at having witnessed Naruto's own mind using the specially-tailored jutsu's cues to fuel its own self-destruction, wiped her own eyes as the jutsu ended. Shortly after, she could tell Naruto was awake. Without opening his eyes, he spoke. "Thank you, Žiara-kun... I definitely needed that wake-up call."
Žiara caught the change of honorific that Naruto seemed to have let out on purpose, though she knew not why, but nevertheless, she responded with a strained smile. "You're welcome, Naruto. Since the training, per se, is done for today, and you're now ready to continue your training, are there any requests you might want?"
"Yes. Two, actually. But for now, I just want the one."
"Of course. What is it?"
Naruto leaned his head into her shoulder, letting out a long, weary sigh. "Just hold me. I... still need a little time to come to terms with my defeat. I never really accepted it before."
Žiara didn't hesitate in the slightest, and hugged Naruto, resting her chin on top of his head. "You don't even have to ask. After what you've been through, you more than deserve it."
Surface of the Moon
Hamura and Hagoromo's attention snapped to Equus as they felt the shift in Naruto's being that indicated he was now on the way to becoming a true Otsutsuki. "So, it's finally begun. Never did I think Mother's prophecy would come true."
Hagoromo turned to Hamura. "I had believed it to be heresy, considering Mother had been paranoid since the bygone age when she tried to take over the entire world. Though I have always had the feeling young Naruto would grow into a truly powerful being, one even we could not comprehend."
"No doubt. The signs are there. Having both of the dojutsu derived from our blood is one thing. Both a Sharingan and a Byakugan has never even been heard of. The bloodlines have always been incompatible with each other, and I remember that sick bastard Orochimaru's experiment in trying to splice pure-blooded Hyuga genes with pure-blooded Uchiha genes always resulted in the test subject dying in the process. But not only that, he's fulfilled Mother's prophecy and accessed both the Awakened Eternal Mangekyo Sharigan and the Awakened Byakugan."
"Yes. That means the time has come for you to abandon your guardianship of the Moon to train young Naruto. He will need everything he can receive in the coming years."
"Yeah, you're certainly not wrong there." Hamura opened a portal to the Moon from their dimension, with the support of Hagoromo's Rinnegan. "But first, like I've already told you, I have to go back to our Moon, first to kill that insolent brat Toneri-"
"-And following that, retrieve and reactivate your Tenseigan, correct?"
"Yes. I'll have to stay on the Moon there for a few weeks while I adjust to the change of having my eyes back."
Hagoromo nodded. "In the meantime, I shall do my best to train Naruto's universal Sharingan abilities by countering them with my own."
"And those were Tsukuyomi and Susano'o, correct?"
"Yes. For obvious reasons, I cannot train Naruto in any regard concerning Izanagi because it renders even Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan mute."
"Well, in that case, I'll leave you to it, brother. I have to get this out of the way. Holy God, this is going to hurt..." Hamura walked through the portal, and it closed behind him, leaving Hagoromo standing on the surface of the moon, feeling both Mother's presence and that of another trapped inside. He used his staff and Rinnegan to conjure his own portal back to Mt. Canterhorn.
Whew, this one was a hell of a doozy to write, and the major scene of the chapter was quite difficult to write, because I've never taken a stab at writing anything that could be considered 'sad' or 'tragedy'. So please, for the love of whatever, leave a review telling me what you thought of that, because if I want to have any chance of doing another of these, I need the feedback.
Won't be writing again until after Christmas, I'm going to let my mind rest for a while before I get back into the swing of things.