*A N D * T H E * S T A R S * L I K E * D I A M O N D S *
…and the stars were like diamonds in the vault of the sky, glittering, tantalizing but locked away, too far to reach but too beautiful to ignore.
The war was brutal.
Unexpected, unwanted, taking Konoha completely unprepared.
The first week had knocked out fully one third of the leaf-nin, hitting all ranks equally from genin to ANBU. No one was spared.
No one.
Punch-drunk, Konoha reeled, gathering forces too slow, too shocked, to wounded. It teetered on the brink of utter destruction, the enemy forces flooding in at every side, seemingly rising from the earth itself like starving dogs, to rip and tear at the sides of the once-great village. Those shinobi who could still gather themselves together flew in desperate suicide charges, protecting the ragged remains of the civilian population.
They were slaughtered.
Or that's what it felt like, anyways. Later years would discover a seventy-percent mortality rate among ninja in the first two months, and forty percent of the noncombatant population in Konoha was killed.
But after those first two months, all of the impurities had been burned out of Kohoha's corps, and all that remained was the strongest, the best, the most cunning. Everyone else had died, leaving only the most powerful, banded together with the red chakra of Konoha's secret weapon. And that group, that inferno-forged blade of the Leaf, began to move forwards.
They started small, raids on minor enemy bases, strikes on supply trains. But as they succeeded, they became even stronger, and their numbers began to grow. They rallied around the blonde hair and vivid blue eyes that seemed so like the Yondaime's, putting their faith in the indefatigable strength and unpredictability of Uzumaki Naruto. And they made progress.
But it wasn't enough. They were still outmatched.
And then fate smiled on Konoha.
It was a genin team—and barely genin, because it was war and anyone who could hold a kunai fought—that found it. Stumbled right across it in the middle of a mission, and it was a wonder they survived. But they did, and they carried the news back—they had found the main base. But what could they do about it? They didn't have enough troops to attempt a frontal assault.
As he had so many other times before, when his people faltered, Uzumaki Naruto stepped forwards.
He plummeted.
Nothing but the air to break his fall, nothing to hear but the roar of the wind and the crackle of chakra. Is this what freedom feels like?
Naruto laughed, and the Kyuubi howled his pleasure.
Fingers etched with scars formed hand signs, and the first stages of Naruto's original jutsu, his masterwork, began. Chakra gathered in his palms, hot enough to burn but Naruto felt nothing, and condensed into matter. He spread his arms wide, enjoying the feeling of flight, the sun on his face, the tones of his own laughter in his ears, one last time. And then he brought his hands together.
His hands, capable of hurling a kunai in excess of 500 meters per second, rushed towards each other, palms flat, each bearing their load of chakra-generated plutonium isotope 239. Thick walls of chakra surrounded his arms, forming a chamber to prevent the explosion from escaping to soon. He spoke what he knew would be his final words, a smile on his face.
"Galaxy Style: Celestial Fission!"
And then the plutonium in his hands slammed together with such force that the nucleus of the atoms fragmented.
Between the scarred and callused palms of Uzumaki Naruto, Jinchurrikki of Konohagakure no Sato, a star was born.
His body was vaporized immediately, as was the enemy camp he had placed himself in the center of. He died alongside twenty-one thousand, five hundred and thirty-six enemy shinobi; a record that has never been matched by any single ninja before or since.
And at 10:07 pm, on October tenth, the sun rose in the west.
No one ever figured out exactly how he'd done it. The legendary Celestial Fission technique was one whispered about in shinobi circles, half believed, half fairy tale. But those who saw it would never forget. That tiny speck, not even discernible as a human being, falling from the back of a raven summons high above the clouds. The angry sparks of chakra manipulation trailing behind that speck as it fell, like lighting in slow-motion, lazily tracing a path to earth. And then that white-hot flash, swelling outwards, a perfect circle, absolutely silent. And then seeing no more, because a star had been born, too hot and bright to see.
They built a memorial, those who remembered. The Hokage mountain in Konoha, pitted and marred with war, still stood. They added one face to it, only half the size of the others, at the very top, with a small plaque at the very peak. Where the other faces looked down over their village with stern brows, this one angled upwards, facing the stars, smiling.
"Uzumaki Naruto
Konohagakure no Sato
Head of the Jounin Corps
He reached the stars."
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