A.N : This short story has resided for many years in the depths of my drive. I thought maybe I could share it, despite its many flaws.
The light blue orb screeched, and the air hummed with power. Ambient light dimmed against the intensity of the mastered wind chakra, like stars fading against the sun.
Tobi felt his eyes widening. At the last second, he bended the reality to teleport away. Nothing he had pulled out since the beginning of the fight had turned like he had wanted. He had trouble admitting it, but he was outclassed. Grinding his teeth, he barely avoided a violent attack.
His opponent seemed able to spam overpowered jutsu like he was merely breathing, and Tobi had the nagging feeling that it was far less than he was truly capable. The man moved like water, the flow of movement unhindered by counterattacks, like he had the capacity of predicting the future, like he had a sharingan. But Tobi could only see a bottomless blue in his opponent's eyes, which kept him in line of sight even when he was teleporting randomly.
When Tobi had tried to flee, the man had seized him by the nap of his neck and roughly, yet casually, shoved him against the ground.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
The tall blond man was crouched, in the relaxed way of a predator certain of his own dominance over a prey. He was plainly clad in black, bearing no distinctive mark aside from a bracelet of wooden red beads adorning his left wrist.
Since the beginning of the fight, Tobi hadn't spotted even the slightest change of expression : his face seemed to be stuck in a blank mask, devoid of emotion.
The blond tilted his head when Tobi tried to engage in a conversation, like he was struggling to catch the meaning of the words.
"You are fated to die, and you'll die today." His voice was rich and soft like velvet, and clashed with the emptiness of the tone.
"Why are you playing with me? You could have me dead for a long time now."
The man shrugged, and Tobi could at least see a flicker of something behind the pools of ice. He remained frozen for a minute, and Tobi began to hope that the fight was maybe over.
"I guess I have trouble resigning myself to walk this path. You are the first milestone. With your death begins the true punishment."
"What do you mean? What do you know about me and my goal?" Tobi added desperately, in a ragged breath : "Maybe we could work together?"
The blond finally let a faint smile grace his lips. "I know enough. I specifically know how all of this will end. But it isn't me who had taken the decision." And with these words, the blond disappeared suddenly. Before he even had the time to decide what to do next, Tobi felt pain explode in his chest. Fast, the pain dimmed, along with his consciousness. Last words, whispered somewhere behind him, reached him before death claimed his soul.
"I'm merely the executioner."
o][o
When the dead wouldn't stay dead, everyone knew that something was wrong. Not wrong like something could be done to right things again, but wrong like doom had descended upon them. At first, only those who had been regular chakra users in their life had returned from the grave. Mindless creatures began to haunt the night, then the day. They couldn't be killed, already belonging to the death realm, and only complete destruction of their body would impair them definitely.
Bonfires were lit, and burnt until the very end.
Black, oily plumes of smoke were smearing the skies, dimming the sunlight at every hour of the day. Everything seemed to be covered by a thin layer of ash. Colors, like joy, had fled the world.
And then, civilians began to come back too. Old people, children, even babies. Paranoïa reigned over the heart of the living, and soon, at the slightest sign that your life had reached its end, you would be thrown outside of the huge wall of Konoha, where only death and solitude awaited you.
When the dead wouldn't find peace, what would that mean for the soul? What was the point of living, and what was the point of dying, either?
Hell is an inescapable trap.
Despair reached another peak when animals began to return. Given time, the disease seemed able to reach everything.
Naruto hadn't shared his suspicion, but he was fearing that one day, all things alive would be affected as well. In sage mode, he was able to perceive the slow, yet unstoppable, progression of the corruption. Nature chakra was slowly turning into a foul miasma.
Controlling chakra was harder with every day passing. Jutsu were nearly impossible to pull out. Only the most passive way of molding it was still reliable, and soon Naruto, with his fair knowledge in fuuinjutsu, was the only one to provide new ways of keeping up the fight.
o][o
The army was facing him. He could see grim resolve in hardened face lines and true, deep sorrow in the gaze of each clone. He knew what to do and how to do it, but he was close to losing the courage needed for this task. Being in the past, before everything - in his perspective - had started was the excruciating temptation to try righting things. But Nature had warned him : it had started too long ago, and today only one path could lead toward a future.
Mankind had to renounce the use of chakra, the bloodlife of nature, in order to stop the outflow. It had to be done very soon, and very quickly. No time to explain this to people, no time to let them accept the unacceptable.
The termination has to be done quickly, ruthlessly.
o][o
Naruto lost his soul when he ended the life of his daughter. She had closed her beautiful eyes, exhausted with starvation, and the shallowness of her breath indicated how close to death she was. Her bony fingers were curled in his larger hand, and Naruto felt like he could crush them even if he squeezed lightly. At her wrist was shining in the sun a simple bracelet with scarlet beads. A beautiful color.
Naruto had not cried for a long time, but this afternoon, next to the river and under the rusted foliage of a dead oak, tears fell freely on the face of the little girl while the dusty ground drank her blood.
When the last child died, time itself stopped.
o][o
Naruto was the last thing alive in a dead world. The chakra had definitely disappeared, along with its twisted remnants. Ashes and dirt were covering every ruin of a lost time. Forests seemed to have turned into stone, and were like mineral sanctuaries frozen for eternity. The only colors remaining aside from the gray and the blue were the fiery hues invading the sky at morning and dusk. Silence reigned. Before the death of everything, Naruto had never truly understood how the world was filled with everything alive. Chirping birds, busy insects, cries of bigger animals, and on the top of all, rustling leaves bringing depths to wind whispers. Now, everything was hollow.
Hollow of life, hollow of meaning, hollow of purpose.
Naruto took a last, unsteady step before falling on his knees. He could not understand why he was still alive, having stopped eating for months already. He could not bring himself to think of suicide: was it his right to take the last life when energy had not left him yet?
He was close to the Vallee of the End, and the giant statues of Madara and Hashirama had been slowly emerging from the mist while he walked the path toward the waterfall. Will something, in years or millennia, stop here and wonder about this huge proof of a time when humanity existed? Or maybe it would rest here, inviolated until the very end?
Naruto sighed and closed his eyes while hanging his head in defeat. He wanted to lie here, in the mud, and never rise again.
Human. The word ringed loudly in his mind, like it was coming from everywhere. Naruto snapped his head upright, startled. The air before him shimmered, before taking slowly the shape of a fantastic creature. Outlined by a faint, blue light, he could still see through it. A gaze filled by stars and deep like the universe settled on his still kneeling form. Naruto felt literally crushed by the sheer presence of the creature, and he believed, for an instant, that madness had finally reached him. Yet, no hostility was permeating the air, and a curious feeling of rest settled on his body.
I'm the soul of Nature, and I'm on the verge of death. Instead of words, pictures and impressions, holding far too many meanings to be translated, were imposing themselves on his mind. You will help me. Naruto nodded, because he had no other choice but to submit.
Your kind forsake me to bound Nature to its will. Chakra was my blood, Tailed beasts were a sliver of my will. Equilibrium was upset when the man you call Sage of the six paths, in his foolish attempt to become a god, spread the knowledge of how to bend chakra to human will. Everything is now shattered. Human, because you are the last, you will be the one to right the balance.
And while Nature spoke to him, Naruto understood what it truly asked him to do. Nature wanted someone strong enough to change the world. He was sure he didn't have that kind of strength, but how could he give up a second chance? There wasn't truly a choice, he would pay for the mistake of the whole humanity.
o][o
It was market day in Konoha. The main square, not far from the Hokage Tower, was filled with cheerful colors and sounds. Morning hours dragged slowly toward noon, and rich smells permeated the air. There was no other place in the world which could be livelier, in Naruto's opinion. He was casually seated against a discarded crate, out of the way but with a good view on the heart of the city. Konoha at peace. What an odd combination. And yet, people couldn't be happier when they could raise children without fear of a possible violent death by an enemy hand. But there were ideals - and people loved to die for ideals. For dry beliefs and illusions.
For hours he had sat here, chin in hands and elbows resting casually on his knees. He had yet to be spotted and asked what he was doing here, but he guessed he looked plain enough to interest no one. Yet, he could see signs of agitation among the ninja population. An unusual amount of shinobis were frantically traveling by rooftops, and surges of chakra spiked near the main gate.
He sighed. He had set his inner timer to dusk, when the last rays of light would dissipate. He would let Konoha and her people spend a last day in near obliviousness. Idly, he knew he was delaying the inevitable, and that would not make things easier.
He had traced the seal the day prior, trapping all chakra-sensitive people within the wall of the village. A city-wide seal, too big to be seen or understood. Naruto knew it was the perfect net for the task he had yet to complete.
But for the moment, he still had a few hours. Many little things could be said to loved ones, to ask questions and answer a few, but everything would end in the same manner, no matter what. Tragedy was better accepted when someone was there to blame. He was there, so he would play his part fully.
When the sun set, it bathed everything in a red, beautiful light. It was a nice summer evening. Fireflies would be soon flying around, giving the night stars that could be held. If circumstances had been like any other times, people would be walking and enjoying the warm air, full of flowery scents, and with the promise of a beautiful tomorrow.
Sadly, no one alive would be there to witness the dawn.
o][o
In the forest, there were places where no one ever set a foot in millenniums. Trees were so huge that the canopy disappeared in eerie mist, which blocked every bit of sunlight that passed through it. The nature seemed to hold a strange power here. Solemnity oozed through the air, and could be perceived in the quiet amble of the deer, in the slow, downy flight of the owl, in the low rumble of countless creaking made by ageless trees.
In the heart of this sanctuary was a cliff. Where the moss had not claimed any hold, the stone was of a pleasant shade of ochre, luminous even in the absence of any direct light. There was a time before when the sun could heat the cliff and outline the faces engraved here. It had been a time that was forgotten by all, when men and women could do wonders and miracles with their hands and their knowledge. But power has a cutting edge that is unavoidable, and there is always someone who strives to impose their reality on others with every means necessary. That was a time of great trouble, with endless wars shaping people - and children - into weapons. It was maybe only the logical conclusion, that this time had ended in a bloodbath of unequaled proportion. Even if this era was barely remembered, the recollection of its end was still vivid in the collective memory, how entire cities had been wiped out by the vengeful spirit in a single day all across the world.
Eons passed, while the blond man remained in a deep meditative trance. In the heart of the forest, he was like a statue. His chest was rising so faintly that it was barely perceptible.
His eyes were closed,
Buried deeply into Nature, Naruto's consciousness spread widely, feeling for the least disturbance in the flow of chakra. As always, there was not a single clue that chakra was distorted to fuel a technique. Everything was like they had to be.
Lids opening slowly on azure eyes, Naruto remained immobile, like he had been for the last or so decades. He was on his favorite spot, seated on the head of the Yondaime Hokage, now totally unrecognizable, eaten by vegetation and withered by elements. Nature had claimed ownership over the ruins of Konoha a long time ago, and only the sturdiest walls remained upright, providing support to ivy and virginia creepers.
There were times where he could barely bear the crushing heaviness of his existence. Doubt had left him long ago, but he couldn't keep himself from wondering. What if fate hadn't set this course for him ? He would have lived and died like any other man, like a tiny cog of a much greater thing. Maybe he would have been remembered for a time.
He was only a sentinel, bound by the unbreakable chains of his sin, death denying him and respite ever off limits. He was more than a human, but he was less than a man, eternally fated to remain in Nature's caring but loveless clutches.