Death -- it wasn't anything like Tomoki expected it to be. Of course, it hadn't been the last time either. One moment, he struggled furiously to mend the widening rift in the ground then, failing that and with his supernatural powers all spent, watched helplessly as Castle Omphalos fell off the face of the earth. An instant later, he watched the continuing spectacle unfold from an ever widening distance as the limiting concepts of time, space and self faded before the irrelevance of a new world that existed beyond being.
In that final moment, he felt the others join him – the thousands that transcended with him from the still tumbling ruins of the great castle. Surprise and exhilaration followed as they realized together how illusory were all the things they'd thought separated them: male and female, young and old, rich and poor, strong and weak; and how insignificant were all those divisions founded on allegiance and ideology.
In that final moment, he saw the brief flicker of his life and those of everyone else's – all those who'd come before him and all those who were yet to be. That separation too was an illusion. Tomoki recognized them, each and every one, as they did him.
The tiny comet that had been his life flickered before him and he saw how it had continued on after those of his family, friends and countrymen ended one day, years ago.
He saw the way each bright, magnificent spark interacted with every other and knew then that no lives were ever unimportant no matter how fleeting or remote.
In that final moment, the boy perceived his time in Konoha and the lives of all the others. Tomoki easily picked out Naruto's thread and followed it back and forth. For awhile he and Naruto existed apart, like two parallel lines. They shared the same time and the same proximity, yet never intersected until the warps and eddies of the cosmos bent their trajectories to cross…together with Xiaomei's; their two continued on while hers did not.
He saw then his life's ending point, now entirely without regret, but then looked on into the future to where Naruto's life went out so soon after his own. Sasuke Uchiha's followed almost immediately afterward, and Sakura Haruno's.
Stubborn memories surfaced. A sense of panic and pain flared as all the lives in the Village Hidden in the Leaves began to go out at once, from young Konohamaru to his grandfather, the Hokage himself.
With his awareness extended by his transition, he saw lives everywhere abruptly end in all the hidden villages – a great and terrifying mass-extinction of humanity unlike anything ever before seen.
When Naruto's eyes fluttered open, he found himself alone in the misting rain with the broken topped ruins of a standing-stone jutting just over him. Gasping then as he realized how cold he was, chilled down to the bone in his torn, drenched clothes, the boy hugged himself then tried to piece together all that had happened.
It was no easy task. His thoughts hovered and he could barely tell past from present or what was dream from what was real. Foremost in his memories loomed a hideous, bandaged figure -- that terrible ghost, one of the seven… no, eight guei that Desdemona had conjured to take vengeance upon the entire world. It had been his wrath that had struck Naruto down, even below what the vast and hidden powers of the Nine-Tailed Fox could sustain.
And he remembered too how Vagrant had spared him, not from love or kinship, but out of pity. The ghost had shared with him her story instead, understanding that Naruto's suffering allowed him to understand hers. She'd saved his life and he'd mourned her death.
The blond genin's trembling, water-wrinkled fingers reached toward his scarred face and noted, without comfort, that his fever seemed a little better and his wounds were smaller than he recalled, though his ribs still ached terribly from some injury he could not remember getting.
Spurred to action not by the unrelenting chill in the air but by the notion that he had forgotten something…something important, Naruto stumbled to his feet and wandered through the flooded landscape.
The storm's fury had passed and the air moved in mild, fitful gusts. The gloomy sky was calm but still lit from time to time with receding sparkles of distant lightning. Of what had been the fragrant and colorful Plaza Lithica, there was nothing left recognizable. The immaculate, green lawns and expansive flower beds had washed away, and everywhere toppled trees lay with their deathly-white roots left naked and exposed.
The genin soon discovered that Castle Omphalos, the seat of power in Earth Country, was no more. Only a ragged drop-off at the edge of the plateau marked the trace of where it had been. Down below, the Village Hidden Among the Stones was drowned and partially in ruins. The fallen castle along with its massive foundations and labyrinthine sublevels, mountains of earth and great hunks of rock sprawled over toppled buildings. The five rivers that once flowed through the castle down into awaiting basins and aqueducts now poured into the streets, marooning entire blocks in lakes of rubble and murky water.
From his vantage high-above Naruto could discern vaguely the scattered clusters of people who gathered at the water's edges, scurried over the wreckage or sat in its midst in shock and disconsolation.
The boy blinked at the sight and swayed unsteadily on the precipice, still reeling from the effects of the guei, Diseased's, curse which magnified the vivid intensity of everything he encountered, but at the same time made them float with a surreal, dreamlike quality that was at once both fascinating and terrifying.
Walking now…he was walking, though he wasn't sure where until, when his staring eyes looked down, he discovered the lifeless body of someone he'd known. How horrible it seemed: it's mangled, broken fingers; its clothing soaked from rain, cut to ribbons and stained dark with blood and earth. The genin turned away at how ghastly, distorted, pale and vacant Tomoki's face seemed without his spirit and personality to animate it. It was exactly what it seemed – an untenanted shell.
Naruto stood and stared for a long time until it seemed to him that nothing existed beyond the few feet of space surrounding him. He knelt then beside the body of his dead friend and lingered there in the darkness with elbows draped over knees.
It seemed to Naruto that he'd slept, awoke, then slept again. But either way, everything always seemed dark, either pitch black or dull grey, which made it difficult to tell or gauge the passage of time; not that it mattered to him.
Presently, through genin's fogged senses, he grew aware that he was no longer alone. There was someone else here -- an old man in white robes and a broad, conical, red and white hat.
Naruto looked up dully into the Hokage's impassive, weathered and grey-goateed face, but this time he wasn't fooled. The young ninja's rational mind had yielded to weariness and allowed him to see this man for what he was: an image only, a projection of the strange being it accompanied. In the Hokage's midst walked a creature -- something like a deer but much greater in size and with a singular horn at the center of a wide, equine forehead. Clouds whirled along scaled flanks which gleamed with many hues. Its eyes were tunnels into forever; within them glimpses of the infinite.
"Oh," Naruto remarked in a listless, tremulous voice, finding it easier to focus on the comforting disguise rather than the challenging reality, "it's you again."
The old man surveyed the wreckage of Plaza Lithica, and seemed to appreciate that it had been beautiful once. "Tell me, young man," the newcomer intoned patiently as he turned his kind yet stern visage toward Naruto. "How long do you plan to sit there and dwell upon your lost friend?"
For awhile the boy expressed no reaction, but then his mouth fell open and he offered simply: "Until I'm done."
A grimace of disapproval worked its way over the Hokage's expression. "Everyone dies in time, Naruto," he explained with a trace of the real ninja-lord's wisdom and compassionate inflections, yet somehow there was something there that didn't seem quite right. This imposter's purpose was to convince, not comfort. "Many succumb to accident, misadventure, stupidity, or the thousands of frailties inherent to mortal existence," continued Naruto's visitor sagely. "Tomoki died putting an end to the Shan Empress, Desdemona's appalling and unnatural jutsu, which would have wracked the earth in war and slain thousands of thousands. You should take comfort in that."
"He," Naruto piped, sniffled, then wiped his nose with a wet sleeve, "was my friend…ya' know?"
The robed man raised a grey eyebrow then looked at him uncertainly with hands clasped behind his back.
"I…I've got this thing," the boy went on, trying desperately to explain, "this monster inside me, but he didn't care. When this crazy crane-spirit trapped me under this big bell because of that, Tomoki came and got me. Who else would do that, huh?" Naruto paused and bit his lip as he started to quake. "And you know how I thanked him?" his voice crested shrilly, then cracked. "I punched him right in the face!" he answered and tapped a trembling fist into his palm. "Some friend I am. I don't even remember why."
The Hokage's double regarded him with what passed for a sympathetic expression and somehow the genin understood that it was not his strange visitor's intention to be aloof, but that it was not human or mortal and was thus unable to appreciate the true qualities of his grief.
"If he was your friend," the figure answered in a voice that flowed like mist on the wind, "then the very last thing he'd wish is for you to waste away mourning him. Do you imagine that Tomoki would draw any comfort from your sitting there -- squatting in the dark, in the mud like that?" The Hokage paused for a moment to allow the question to answer itself, then smiled charitably. "He fulfilled his destiny, but you, Naruto, have only begun."
Naruto scoffed, "What destiny do I have? Tomoki died because I was so fixed on training, and beating stupid Neji that I forgot all about him." The blond boy's bloodshot, blue eyes, dimmed by tears, looked up at the old man. "I just…I just wanted to be a chunin so bad, to be some kind of big-shot! It's my fault he's dead; it's all my --."
"Stop being a fool!" the Hokage commanded suddenly, regally, but without anger in a tone that shook Naruto to his core. "That boy's entire life lead to this, shaped by circumstances, yes, but by his choices too." The man's ancient countenance lit. "He could have refused his mission, or left at anytime; he could have joined the Shan Empress then protracted his existence as a guei -- inhuman but immortal. No one wants to die, Naruto, but sometimes there's nothing for it. Death is life's natural consequence and, as you have seen for yourself, there are worse alternatives." A wind, heavy with vapor, whispered over them like the breath of the world, stirring through the old man's robes.
"For much of his life he lived only for revenge." The Hokage's face tightened into a mirthless smile as he nodded to himself, then concluded: "But in the end he died nobly and on his own terms. Surely, you must take solace in that."
Naruto listened, grit his teeth then looked away neither convinced nor consoled.
"This pains me," his advisor spat with genuine anger now, "the illusions you cling to and the truths you reject. I have already delayed myself too long in this useless effort. But Naruto, know this: if you remain here much longer, you too will die. That will not alter anything that's happened, but could change what will come in ways you cannot conceive!"
The visitor's tangible form wavered as if its own outburst had somehow un-tethered it from existence, which gave the boy another glimpse of the great, supernatural beast that hid within it. The false Hokage turned to look back at Naruto one last time to gage if his final plea had done any good then abandoned the idea and began to march off, his corporeality seeming to fade away with each passing step.
"Wait!" Naruto cried abruptly, pushed himself stiffly to his feet and slogged after him over slicks of mud and sheets of water. "Wait!" The ragged genin loped around before the Hokage and stood before him. "You," he gasped, then looked up with his eyes burning like sapphire flames, "you're really a qi-lin, right? That's what Tomoki called you…a…a…servant in the court of heaven."
The Hokage's eyes rose, seemingly insulted by Naruto's assertion, but he did not deny it.
"You can bring him back, can't you?" the boy pleaded in a heartbreaking voice. "Can't you…please?"
The figure stopped, momentarily taken-aback, then shook his head. "I'm sorry, Naruto." The Hokage, looking every bit of his apparent age, turned, knowing that what he was about to say would not bring the boy any comfort. "The only reason I'm involved in this matter at all is because Desdemona's plan was not her own. It was inspired by an entity like myself, equal and opposite, who took unfair advantage of her madness to drive her toward disrupting the natural flow of this world's energies.
"In countering it," the stranger with the familiar face went on, "I have great power and great latitude to destroy what is or create what is not, but none have the power to restore to life that which has already passed."
Naruto tensed and twitched as a storm of emotion gathered within him. "That can't be it!" he shouted suddenly into the Hokage's surprised face and shook him by the hems of his white robes which felt real enough, though bone dry, as he clutched them in both fists. "Are you listening?! You're the one who sent him on this stupid mission in the first place! And he went 'cause he wanted to impress who he thought you were, 'cause after all that time he wanted you to know who he was and be proud of him." The genin gulped for breath before he was able to continue. His forehead and whisker-marked cheeks flushed, and tears pooled in his eyes. "Even after he found out you were a fake, he still went on with it because you said all those people were gonna die if he didn't. He was doing what you wanted him to and this is how you pay him back?! That's ridiculous; it's worthless!"
"I'm," the qi-lin startled, unsure for the first time of what to say, "truly sorry, Naruto. I'm…I'm only a servant. Such things are beyond me."
As quickly as the ragged and soaked genin's fury came, so it departed. His tense, white-knuckled grip dropped from the Hokage's robes and Naruto stumbled away. "But there," he wheezed desolately, "there has to be something you can do."
The old man's face fell as he closed his eyes and shook his head slightly with regret.
While the two figures regarded each other upon that dismal night, the wind again rose, making the branches creak and casting ripples over the broad pools of standing water.
Naruto straightened suddenly and his eyes flashed with resolve. "Then I'm not going anywhere!" the boy shouted impulsively at last. "I'm staying right here!" he confirmed and lashed his arm in a broad, sweeping arc, then pointed straight at the Hokage. "And I don't care if you don't like it!"
The imitative man's mouth dropped and the robed figure raised his arm after the boy. "But," he protested. "That's utterly senseless!"
The young leaf ninja, Naruto Uzumaki, gave him a cold look which said more clearly than words that he'd said all he was going to. Then he stomped back, splashing water and squishing mud, to where Tomoki lay, sat down and crossed his arms.
The unworldly visitor stared at him in utter disbelief before the expression drained from his face and he hung his head. Silence fell, and the ripples raised in the water from the angry genin's passage faded away.
The Hokage expressed a sigh. "I suppose I can ask," he muttered hesitantly.
"Yeah?" said Naruto. "You do that."
Laughter. Cruel, mocking laughter rang in Naruto's ears, overtaking his mind and pouring though his very essence. His young face flushed as he faced Iruka-sensei who stood by with a look of irritation and disappointment that made the aspiring student's heart sink. The boy then looked up dismally at the wood-fronted desks that rose up before him like magistrates' benches to bear the harsh judgment of his peers who hooted and roared at Naruto's sad attempt to mimic the Hokage with a basic transformation jutsu.
This is a dream…just a memory, he realized without explicitly thinking it. The center of his attention was vivid and sharp with bright colors in a way that seemed more real than real, while the edges faded out into blurry irrelevance. Naruto asserted control over his memory in a passive, effortless sort of way, and turned that attention now to the two, the only two of his classmates present, who did not laugh – Sasuke Uchiha and Tomoki.
Sasuke returned Naruto's look with one of cool indifference which burned, in its own way, worse than scorn. Turning then toward Tomoki, he saw the quiet boy facing toward him. By every outward appearance he was engaged and attentive, but when Naruto looked closer he could see that the ordinary-looking boy's thoughts were far away.
The scene changed with a seamless quality the way dreams do. Naruto strutted now along the placid streets of Konoha, beaming with pride at the headband he wore which carried upon it the crest of the Hidden Leaf Village and identified him as a real ninja – a level of great accomplishment that no one could disparage.
As it happened, the man who'd given him that headband was passing by.
"Naruto," greeted Iruka-sensei in an amiable voice. The lean, pony-tailed man smiled at his former student and regarded him contemplatively. "I never thought I'd get to say this, but it looks good on you; like it belongs."
The new genin grinned ear to ear at his teacher's praise, then rested both hands behind his blond-haired head. "Thanks, sensei!"
The man nodded smartly, started to walk off, then turned back as he remembered something. "Oh, Naruto," he began. "You haven't seen Tomoki around, have you?"
The boy went blank for a moment as he tried to recall his quiet classmate.
"Well, if you do," allowed Iruka, "remind him to fill out his paperwork and that he needs to provide a photo for his official records."
"Um, sure, sensei," the boy agreed without enthusiasm, then snorted once his instructor was out of earshot. As if I'm going to do any of them any favors! he thought.
The path of his dream dislocated him once again, yet still it did not seem, experientially, at all jarring, abrupt or discontinuous. He stood by now, disembodied, high in the aerie apartments of Castle Omphalos in the boudoir of Desdemona Shan, who lay huddled in her soaring, canopied bed, fully-dressed in black, mourning robes, whose long train of black lace poured off the edge of the bed out over the carpeted floor.
Untended embers smoldered in a towering fireplace mantled with polished marble. Artful tapestries adorned her walls and chandeliers hung from her ceilings. None of these things or the breathtaking powers she wielded could console her now through what she endured: an endless night when the soul calls upon itself for a reckoning.
The woman quaked and sweated, her hands clutched tight as she sought for the answers all men seek. A voice answered, but it was not her own. Naruto could see her again, a second Desdemona, standing over her then sitting by her side then orbiting her bed, offering comfort and explanations but in breaths that stank of the redolent earth, the sea and of hot iron. Her eyes were not any of the Shan family's colors, but dark and tunnel-deep. When Naruto averted the center of his attention he could make out the monstrous shape that abided within the other Empress, a great beast with three-heads -- one serpentine, one horned and hircine, and one leonine.
Iruka-sensei passed by again. It was later in the day, and this time the man's face was grim. "What's wrong, sensei?" asked Naruto, whereupon the chunin spun around.
"There's still no sign of Tomoki," he grumbled with clear agitation. His gloomy brows converged on the scar that passed under his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. "And he was supposed to get all his forms filled out today."
Naruto shrugged absently. "So he's late," the boy advanced. "What's the big deal?"
"The 'big deal', Naruto, is that no one's seen him." The instructor's dark eyes narrowed as he shook his head. "He's just up and vanished like a puff in the wind. I don't know if he fell asleep somewhere, if he's suddenly decided that he can blow off his responsibilities now that he's graduated, or if he's gotten hurt somehow…I just don't know."
The new genin's cerulean eyes blinked. He thought it odd for Iruka to indulge in speculation like this. "You think he's gotten hurt?"
"I tell you, he'd better have one hell of a good explanation," replied the scarred man. The dire tone of the normally easy-going and infinitely-tolerant Iruka-sensei riveted the boy. The effect was even more intense when Iruka turned to the young ninja and said: "Naruto, he could be a spy."
Naruto gaped at him, goggled eyed, and his fists clenched. "A spy?!"
"Well, why not?" The ninja threw up his arms then let them fall. "Mizuki was a spy and no one suspected him either." Iruka paced away a step to calm himself then pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. "No, Naruto," he amended now more softly, "I don't really think Tomoki's a spy. It's just that this is making me crazy…just like it made me crazy when you ran off."
"He...when I ran off?" babbled Naruto, whose thoughts were racing now faster than he could speak. His yellow eyebrows knitted. "I'm sure he'll show up."
Iruka sighed then started away. "Yeah, you're probably right."
As Naruto stared after him, his normal demeanor quickly returned and a Cheshire-cat grin blossomed over the boy's mischievous face. "Hehe, it's kinda funny sensei," the blond called out to his teacher in his raspy tenor; his sapphire eyes a-glow. "I don't think I've ever seen you this mad at anyone but me before!"
Iruka turned back towards him with an uncomplaining smile, but this time his eyes were tunnel-deep. "Enjoy the moment," he advised then added: "Seriously, if you see him, tell him…ah, forget it. I'll tell him myself."
Naruto startled awake at the strange sounds. His sudden motion sent mercuric trickles of water slithering down his face. The sky was still dark – a swirling stew of grey and black clouds, but they were breaking and a few gaps yielded a veiled view into a starlit indigo that was lightening just faintly with the dawn.
The young ninja, weary from exertion, disease, grief, and prolonged exposure to the rain and cold, looked around – his eyes darting in anxious, jerking motions.
Across the vast expanse of drowned wasteland that had been Plaza Lithica danced clusters and strings of scattered lights, like faeries in some underworld.
The genin blinked as some of the lights drew towards him, swaying and bobbing back and forth over the ground.
"What a mess," muttered one in a tired, nasally voice, "I sure never expected anything like this. I can't believe it's gone! I mean...just…gone."
"Mm-hmm," agreed it's companion stoically. "Who'd have thought? The Shan dynasty lasted over four-hundred years, and now they're done in a single night just 'cause of a little rain. Weird."
The lights came closer: stars dancing in the darkness.
"Hey, what's that?" said the first, as both lights blazed into beams that crossed over the swampy ground then froze, illuminating the cold and water-logged Naruto in their pitilessly-intense focus.
The bedraggled blond scowled and flinched away, then sent a shuriken hissing forth with a blurring motion of his arm.
A yelp of alarm followed as one of the offending lights went spinning off into space while the other fled.
Naruto issued a steaming breath into the cool air and resumed his meditative posture. After awhile, more lights came and more voices sounded in the dark stillness. This time there were quite a few of them. The lights made toward him, gathering speed as they came, until one of them corralled the others and ushered them back.
In the darkness the lights gathered into a cluster as they conferred, then sent forth a single, dim representative.
Footsteps squished toward him and Naruto's eyes rose toward a dim shape that gradually resolved itself into the figure of a young man dressed in a baggy, blue and white uniform and who carried a muted lantern. Naruto stared uncertainly and uncaringly, thinking that his goulashes and wide-brimmed rain-hat seemed silly. But then his eyes wandered over the newcomer's puzzled, somewhat familiar face, and started with recognition at the scar upon his cheek – a character that read 'Vagrant'.
"Hey," the stranger ventured as he moved toward him warily then knelt down so that they were at eye level. "You're, um…Naruto, right?"
The genin blinked slowly then nodded.
"I thought so. Oh, man!" the man gushed with relief, then laughed. "We've been looking feakin' everywhere for you. Lady Acacia said 'there'd be hell to pay' if we didn't find you and Tomoki." He looked again and took notice of the hollow, haunted look in the ninja's staring eyes. "My name's Wen, Naruto. We've never met, but that was me Tomoki was talking to near the road outside of the Princess in Exile's cottage. Do you remember?" Wen glanced away, disconcerted by the blond boy's reaction. "Well anyway…do you know where Tomoki is?"
Naruto shut his eyes and canted his head. His rescuer followed the gesture through the darkness and looked. "Aw, no!" he muttered in alarm then hurried to where Tomoki lay. Wen knelt and shook his head in disbelief. "Aw, no, no, no," he went on, "Tomoki." He remained there stunned for a moment, then abruptly came to his feet and waved his lantern frantically. "Hey!" he cried out at the top of his lungs toward the group that awaited.
"Shut up!" snarled Naruto so fiercely that Wen at once fearfully complied.
Wen gave the boy a peculiar look. "What…what do you mean?" the young man's voice quaked uncertainly. "We can take you someplace safe, get you out of the cold, get some food in you."
Without looking at him, the leaf-genin intoned: "I'm not going anywhere…neither is he."
The puzzled uchi-deshi's mouth formed an 'o' as his eyes wandered in thought. "But Naruto, Tomoki's….Tomoki's…, and you don't look so good either." The older boy fell silent as he clearly expected Naruto to receive his advice. "I mean," he continued awkwardly when it was not, "you can't stay here."
Moments passed in silence until the stubborn genin replied at last, "watch me."
Wen's expression blanked then melted with sympathy as his shoulders slumped. "'You mind some company, then?" When Naruto didn't answer, Wen interpreted it as assent and sat down next to him. "He was a good guy. I probably don't have to tell you, right?"
The leaf-genin nodded slowly, then lashed his hand out to intercept Wen's incoming strike. Only when it was too late did he realize that's what he'd expected. The eggshell hidden in the bigger uchi-deshi's fist burst, casting a cloud of powder into Naruto's surprised face.
Naruto barked in shock then threw himself aside and kicked, catching Wen in the chest. The older boy gasped and fell back as the genin leaped away then came to his feet in a wobbly crouch. Kunai knives were in his hands and his teeth were bared, but his vision was speckled with pricks of light and his body was starting to drop out from under him. All in a rush Naruto found himself face down in the mud and completely paralyzed, feeling nothing but an acidic burning around his face, nose, throat and down into his lungs.
Hands he didn't feel pried the young ninja up and flipped his limp body over, then cleared the gunk from his eyes and nostrils. "I'm sorry, Naruto," he heard Wen apologize. "That was a cheap trick. I know you've been through a lot already, and you didn't deserve that…but you really didn't leave me any choice. I hope…I just hope you're not mad or anything."
Wen rose to his feet, grasping his chest, then shouted. He kept shouting until, at last, more of the Princess in Exile's uchi-deshi arrived. Among them were medical nins who bore stretchers and doctor's kits.
Naruto's world spun as strange hands lifted him expertly onto a stretcher and strapped him in, then he felt the ground leave him as they carried him away. Every remaining thought demanded that he fight this. He'd vowed to remain, yet here he was unable to prevent himself from being trucked off like so much garbage; his body rocked from his attendant's harmonic strides.
The sky was growing light as his vision was going dark. He could see the clouds yield to the radiant dawn, and a rising sun that gilded their retreating edges in streaks of fiery gold. Sounds rang in his ears and visions passed before his eyes as he raged impotently until all thoughts were stilled by a single overheard utterance: "Hold on!" the receding voice cried urgently. "This one's still alive!"