THE END AT THE VALLEY
Fire engulfs Naruto, and seen from afar it's like a beacon in the middle of the night. The flames coil around his arms, his legs, his body, too intense for this rain, no matter how heavy it is, to extinguish them. There's a moment when his eyes lose their light and he collapses, falling into the mud by the edge of the lake. And Sasuke, breathing heavily nearby, lowers his gaze. "It's over."
"I told you to leave. Why do you never listen to anyone, idiot?!"
The rage and frustration he feels make him scream this last phrase. Why did it have to come to this? A death so pointless, so... meaningless! No matter how dense, how useless his former teammate may be, it didn't have to end like this. What crosses Sasuke's heart right now resembles grief. But wait, Sasuke. Maybe it's too early for compassion. Perhaps you should worry about yourself.
"You..." Something has happened. Sasuke's eyes widen: his irises, still painted with the sharingan's tomoe, tremble in shock. "It can't be!"
Ah, you've noticed. There's still life in Naruto. You may have won the fight against him, but you still have a second opponent to face. Or rather an opponent to survive: the legendary beast, the Nine-Tailed Fox.
Because the flames no longer consume Naruto's body: his chakra consumes the flames. It's a chakra so intense that you can see it, no longer in mist form, but something denser; something that floats, twists, and bubbles, forming an aura around him. It's that same chakra, icy and filled with malice, that lifts him up, raising him from the ground like a gust of wind until he stands. There's a moment when everything pauses. Sasuke breathes heavily, the other remains still. Both stand face to face under the intense rain. Then, Naruto lifts his gaze. There's nothing human left in it.
"All right, come at me!" Sasuke shouts, gathering every ounce, every bit of his chakra. "Come as a human, as a beast, I don't care! Whatever you throw at me, I'll tear it apart!" And with another shout, Sasuke focuses all the chakra he can into his right hand and unleashes his most powerful technique.
At first, it's like having a handful of lightning between your fingers. But it doesn't take long for it to overflow and completely cover them. It's one of those techniques designed with the sole purpose of killing the opponent with a single lethal blow. Now, as Sasuke charges forward, surrounded by a tangle of electric chakra, we can hear his name:
"Chidori!" Putting all his effort into this attack, Sasuke aims directly at his friend's chest, with a hand that's now like a spear of lightning...
The problem is that Naruto isn't there anymore. Straight-line attacks aren't of much use if your opponent is faster than you. And believe me, there's a lot of difference between them right now. It's as if he disappeared before Sasuke's eyes. His two-tomoe Sharingan can't keep up until... there he is! He too has charged forward and now he's very close, inside Sasuke's guard, and crouched in such a way that the punch comes from below, rising like a hook hitting him in the stomach, doubling him over, and at this very moment Sasuke loses control of his thoughts and his chakra for a second; his irises blur, the Chidori disappears, and he spits blood...
... Naruto steps forward, firmly planting a leg on the ground, he smiles, no, he laughs, and with Sasuke still hanging from his right hook, he gathers his strength and hurls him backwards with the strongest punch he's ever thrown in his life. Sasuke crashes into the mountain with the force of a gunshot. And from here on, his consciousness begins to falter.
Now his thoughts are mired in the mud. His vision is blurred and breathing is difficult. But he rises again from the rubble. And although he doesn't know it, there are now three tomoe in his eyes instead of two.
"This isn't over", he mutters, tasting blood in his throat. "Come on, come at me, monster."
In the distance, whatever Naruto is now walks slowly towards him, laughing softly. The chakra mantle enveloping him now forms the ears and tail of the Fox: seen in the middle of the night, it gives the impression of facing something demonic. Something supernatural. And that something lunges forward, attacks.
What follows isn't a fight. It's Sasuke trying to survive. Naruto's attacks are fast and wild, and if he hasn't finished him off yet, it's because he's using everything he knows, every trick, every technique, to prevent that final blow from reaching him. It could be any of them. That punch now whistling above his head seemed capable of tearing it off his shoulders. That hook that makes his nose bleed without touching him feels just as dangerous. That charge, running on all fours like an animal, crashes against the rock without hitting him and yet still shatters it... what would it have been capable of doing to him?
At this rate, he's going to die. At some point, his chakra will run out and that will be it. Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu! Sage Art: Fire Release Stream! Use them all, Sasuke! Burn him, even! But look how he walks through the fire like a demon. Nothing you throw at him can dent his chakra armor. Unless...
Sasuke pulls out a kunai from his tool pouch and rushes at Naruto. If you're going to face death, do it head-on. "Now focus. You have to dodge it. You have to..." No sooner does he formulate that thought, Naruto also starts running. Of course, much faster than him. But Sasuke is ready, he ducks under the punch coming straight at him, and wrapping the kunai with his chakra, he stabs it into the chakra mantle at abdomen level; then he jumps as far forward as he can, so that when he twists in the air, the other turns his back to him.
"Take this, goddamn it!" The slanted eyes sharply turn towards him. And then two things happen. First, Sasuke holds his gaze, and his Sharingan activates. Next, he traps him in an illusion.
Hypnosis. That's one of the powers of the rotating pupil. A Sharingan user can trap you in an illusion if their gaze meets yours. There are abilities that work even when your opponent has greater power than yours. And now that Naruto is paralyzed, staring ahead as if absorbed in something, Sasuke has enough time to form the seals for his Chidori once again. But this time it's not the same as before. There's something different about it.
It's not just that his chakra is multiplying: his appearance has changed too. The seal marks have expanded to cover his entire body; his hair has grown in length, and monstrous wings, made of flesh, sprout from his back like two enormous hands... It's the second stage of Orochimaru's Cursed Seal. And now, the dark power that the seal injects into Sasuke's body is seeping into his technique, which is no longer blue but white and black; it no longer looks like electricity but some kind of curse. And the lightning that once screeched like a thousand birds now sounds like a lament.
"This is where it all ends, Naruto!" He's fast as a lightning bolt. Where he used to lack speed, he now has more than enough to catch Naruto off guard as he begins to awaken from a genjutsu... too late. Sasuke forms a seal with his free hand, and the explosive tags he had attached to the kunai earlier explode, dispersing the chakra mantle, and creating the perfect space for Sasuke's attack to hit him squarely, this time, in his own flesh: "Chidori!"
The scream, the howl of pain, is animalistic. Naruto moves just enough so that the Chidori doesn't hit him dead center in the stomach but rather on his side. The damage is brutal nonetheless. Think of a spoon scooping out a piece of warm butter. Sasuke's technique tears a piece of him away, leaving the flesh burned, scorched, on contact... Naruto's irises shrink. His heart beats once, forcefully, and the reverberation shakes his body like a wave of energy. And it happens: his fox tail grows in size, also in thickness, and finally splits in two.
This time it's Naruto who seeks him out with his gaze. And in an instant, Sasuke sees himself in the same cavern his friend saw before, alone, in the darkness, with the Nine-Tailed Fox watching him from its immense cage.
"Are you afraid, Uchiha boy?" His deep voice rumbles on the ground and in Sasuke's chest. "It's not necessary: you're already dead. I just wanted to see you with my own eyes before tearing you apart."
"It will be you who dies here, monster! An Uchiha defeated you before. I'll be the second to do it."
"Ha! You certainly resemble him. If only in how arrogant you are." The Fox laughs maliciously. "Farewell, Sasuke Uchiha. I'll enjoy watching you die."
GOODBYE! NARUTO UZUMAKI!
A few seconds earlier, in the illusory world
Imagine being alone in this world. There's neither a sky nor a land, nor anyone to share them with: all that exists is an infinite void, and you're at its center. Now you get an idea of how he feels.
And who is he? Well, the boy who appears on the scene, first from afar — and like in a movie — getting closer and closer. So, albeit fleetingly, we can see him clearly: he has a small body, fair skin, and a symbol painted on his belly. We see his messy, yellow hair; the three marks, like scratches, on each cheek. But it's not until later, when we zoom in on his face, that we see them. Those eyes glowing like paper lanterns, red as blood, and filled with malice.
There's a reflection in that gaze. It's another person, but they're far enough away that we can't tell who it is. So let's turn the camera a hundred and eighty degrees to focus on a boy identical to the first. He has the same hair, the same marks, the same drawing on his stomach. The only difference is that in his blue irises, there's not such an obvious malice, nor such a fierce hunger.
"So, have you made up your mind yet?" Now we see them both from a distance. The first boy flashes a forced and cruel smile, to which the other doesn't react. "Because we don't have much time left, you know. Oh well, I suppose you can't hear me. It's better that way: you'd probably make some stupid decision. Don't worry, I'll make it for you. You know I know what's best for you."
Imagine being able to shake the world with just a clap. So that suddenly, a starry sky appears above our heads; and at the same time, in all directions, a thick forest of leaves and mist sprouts, enclosing the valley that shinobi called the Valley of Death. Now you know what just happened. Because the two boys are no longer alone in this world, no: now they're facing each other, on the edge of the lake, and in between them, like in a painting, the great waterfall roars.
"It's alright. This was going to happen sooner or later. And it's better to get rid of disappointments quickly, isn't it? Don't want you holding onto false hopes."
They are aligned with the stone titans that crown the valley: on the left, the sculpture of Madara Uchiha, and on the right, that of Hashirama Senju. And there's a moment, a flash, when something strange happens. The boys' bodies flicker, disappear. And in their place appears the scene we saw before: Naruto, wrapped in his chakra cloak, being pierced by Sasuke Uchiha's Chidori. Then, they too disappear, and the real Naruto is replaced by his two imaginary versions.
There's a snap as one forms a hand seal. And the melody of a string instrument accompanies the appearance of the bars of the immense cage that sprouts, like the prow of a ship, from within the waterfall. It's the colossal prison of the Nine-Tailed Fox. But there's no beast inside.
It's empty. The seal is broken, and the doors, wide open.
The boy's hands form another seal and the lake spins on itself, like a model, until the one with blue eyes is inside the cage behind the waterfall. The other starts laughing, happily, and as the image blurs and dissolves, there's a third seal, and the doors of the cage close.