Six months since the name "Naruto Uzumaki" was last spoken by the system.
Six months since the sky flickered with unregistered power.
Six months since the last anomaly vanished into the fracture between stories—
And the world decided to keep turning anyway.
The Five Great Nations were whole again.
Not united.
Not healed.
But functioning.
They had gods now.
Real ones.
Not faiths whispered in shrines or war-cries from crumbling statues. No—these gods had names, faces, domains, and systems.
They issued quests.
They assigned fables.
They voted on lives.
And now?
They had grown tired of each other.
[Scenario 40 – The Great Extinguishing War]
"The gods demand convergence."
"Five Villages. Nine Champions each."
"The last Village standing earns a single Absolute Wish."
"The others will be erased."
This was no longer a game of sponsors and survivors.
This was a thinning of the narrative.
The gods called it "balancing."
The people called it "divine extinction."
Each village had assembled its best.
No… its final.
Nine champions. The culmination of legacy, bloodline, sacrifice, and myth.
Chosen not just to win, but to become what remained of their world.
The Arena?
Not built.
Revealed.
When the sky broke, and the ground peeled back, and the stars themselves made way.
A floating world, orbiting a blind sun.
Stadiums carved from the bones of forgotten dragons.
Chambers where time was thinner than breath.
This was the Concord.
And once the scenario began, no one would leave.
Konoha was not ready.
Not because it lacked power.
Not because it lacked heroes.
But because the strongest among them…
Was gone.
Sasuke Uchiha had disappeared after Scenario 39.
Not into exile.
Not into grief.
Into distance.
He was not sulking.
He was not lost.
He was watching the world, alone.
And the world had learned something in his absence.
Sasuke was no longer "Naruto's rival."
Sasuke was no longer "the last Uchiha."
Sasuke was no longer "the one who walked behind."
Sasuke was now the strongest in the Leaf.
Stronger than the revived legends.
Stronger than Minato.
Stronger than the gods thought he should be.
But the system had one rule:
"A village without nine champions forfeits."
So they needed him.
Not to win.
But to keep the Leaf alive long enough to matter.
And so the search began.
Scene: Before the Departure
The briefing hall was carved from restored obsidian.
A gift from the system after Scenario 36.
Hinata stood at the center, fingers laced.
Her hair was longer now. Her eyes softer—but her posture made people sit straighter.
Around her stood:
Neji, arms folded, a fable burning behind his left eye
Tenten, checking the seals on a weapon case that looked older than the system
Rock Lee, radiating a silent fire even as he drank his morning tea
Kushina, back from her grief, but not from the pain
Kakashi, now god-marked, but quieter than ever
Minato, looking at the map like he might set it on fire if it dared show him something wrong
Guy, smiling, but slower now. He moved like someone who'd seen the end and walked back.
And above them all?
A screen flickered.
Sasuke's last known coordinates.
"He's in the old Blood Sector," Neji said. "Where the Tower of Abandonment used to be."
"He's not hiding," Tenten added. "He's watching. That place sees everything."
Hinata nodded.
"We have six days until the scenario locks."
"If we don't bring him back…"
"They'll erase the Leaf by default."
Silence.
Until Guy said:
"Then we go together."
Scene: The Journey Begins
They left that night.
All eight champions.
Eight myths in motion.
Moving like shadows across a world that had forgotten peace.
They passed through collapsed sectors—realms still haunted by broken fables.
They passed refugees who no longer prayed—only bargained with gods who kept receipts.
They passed new nations rising from the cracks, built on fear of becoming the next erased.
And still—
No Sasuke.
Until the fifth day.
They reached the edge of the Blood Sector.
It no longer had sky.
Just red light, stretched thin across obsidian peaks.
The Tower loomed.
Collapsed.
But burning from the inside, like something alive still slept there.
Hinata stepped forward.
She could feel it.
Not just power.
Not just chakra.
A presence.
One that knew they were here.
One that had been waiting.
Sasuke stood at the edge of the ruin.
Cloaked in something that wasn't chakra.
His Raijinshu cloak flickered like plasma across black feathers.
The Susanoo, no longer a giant—just his shadow now.
And behind his eyes?
The storm.
He turned to them.
Spoke without flinching.
"You want me to fight."
"You want me to win."
"But what happens if I do?"
No one answered.
Not yet.
Because they all knew—
The system wasn't just testing who could survive.
It was testing who deserved to remain.
And Sasuke…
Sasuke wasn't sure the world deserved anything at all.
And above them—
The sky cracked.
And the Scenario began to count.
The crater that once held the Tower of Abandonment smelled like old iron and scorched memory.
Sasuke stood at the edge, looking down at a void that no longer reflected the sky.
His cloak barely moved.
Not because there was no wind—
But because the wind no longer touched him.
The others arrived in silence.
Hinata stepped forward first.
Neji stayed behind her, arms crossed.
Tenten unslung her sealed weapon scroll but didn't open it.
Lee bowed—not in greeting, but in recognition.
Kushina said nothing. She just looked at him like a mother seeing a son she never met.
Guy and Kakashi exchanged no words. They didn't need to.
Minato watched the edge of the crater, the way Sasuke's shadow didn't line up with the terrain. Like the world wasn't finished rendering him.
And then Sasuke turned.
His left arm ended at the shoulder.
Where it should've been, an arc of bladed lightning snapped and unfolded—
Coated in compressed chakra and Raijin's will, shaped into a skeletal limb of shifting energy.
It didn't mimic flesh.
It was something else.
A Susanoo phantom. A Raijinshu extension. A prosthetic made of conviction.
He spoke.
Not as greeting.
As judgment.
"You waited six months. And now you come."
His voice didn't echo. It didn't need to.
The words carried the weight of finality.
Hinata didn't flinch.
"Because we need you."
Sasuke's eye narrowed. The Raijin-flame in his left socket sparked like thunder restrained.
"Then say it correctly."
"You don't 'need' me. You want me to destroy your enemies."
"You want me to erase what stands in your way."
"You want me to impose my truth on a world that forgot yours."
"So say it."
Neji's voice broke in next. Calm, clipped, proud.
"You're the strongest among us."
"Stronger than Kakashi. Than Minato. Than even him."
"And we don't want to win through compromise."
"We want to win through clarity."
Sasuke tilted his head.
"And if my clarity looks like annihilation?"
"If I rewrite cause and effect, fracture the stage, and burn gods by name—will you accept that as your victory?"
Lee bowed his head lower.
"If it protects my comrades, I will accept any fire."
Tenten muttered under her breath.
"I just want to walk off that stage alive. If you can get me there, I don't care if the world doesn't understand how."
Sasuke's susanoo-arm folded across his chest.
The lightning in his shoulder unfolded like paper soaked in rainlight, becoming dozens of weapon shapes before stabilizing into a jagged, semi-transparent fist.
He looked to Guy.
"And you? The one who burned so brightly once. Are you still ready to die again?"
Guy smiled. Not brightly. Not arrogantly. Just… steadily.
"If the youth around me can live because of it—yes."
Sasuke turned next to Kushina.
"You were given a second chance."
"Would you spend it watching another massacre unfold by your side?"
Kushina didn't flinch.
"No."
"That's why I'm here."
"To end it this time."
Then Minato. And here, Sasuke paused.
They locked eyes.
Not as teacher and student.
Not as master and subordinate.
As two men who had both died and returned to find the world unrecognizable.
"You once died to save the village."
"Would you now kill to preserve it?"
Minato's voice was quieter than expected.
But it didn't tremble.
"Only if I don't have to ask someone else to do it for me."
The air grew heavier.
Even the gods watching from above dared not interrupt.
Sasuke raised his right hand.
Opened his palm.
The crater behind him began to glow.
Cracks of divine glass bled light that wasn't from this plane.
"I've seen the edge of this story."
"I've met the other versions of myself. The ones who submitted. The ones who fell in love with godhood. The ones who wanted to be remembered more than they wanted to be true."
He took a step forward.
The crater quaked.
"I am not one of them."
"I am not your leader. Not your god. Not your legacy."
"I am a weapon that chose to be more."
Hinata stepped in again. Her voice never rose.
But it resonated.
"We don't want you to lead us."
"We want you to walk beside us."
"Not because we need a sword."
"But because we remember the boy who stood at Naruto's side."
The name.
It hit.
Hard.
Sasuke's lightning-arm shuddered.
The phantom chakra rippled—
Not in rage.
But in memory.
He whispered.
"You think I do this because he's gone."
"But I do this because he was the only person I couldn't catch."
Neji lowered his head.
"Then surpass him."
Kakashi, for the first time, spoke.
"No."
"Walk with him. When he returns."
That broke the silence.
Completely.
Sasuke turned his head to the side.
Lightning cracked around his feet.
The crater behind him folded into nothing.
And he whispered:
"Then follow me."
"We have gods to silence."
The wind moved like ash through the crater. The gods were watching. But for now, they said nothing.
The Company stood at the edge of the Blood Sector.
They had reclaimed Sasuke.
But the weight of what was coming hadn't faded.
It settled into their bones.
The system's countdown was audible in the static of the air, a pressure that layered on skin and soul.
Tomorrow began Scenario 40: The Great Extinguishing War.
And before the world ended again, they needed to talk.
They set up temporary shelter in the corpse of an old battlefield, where the flags of a hundred forgotten scenarios still fluttered like prayers tied to dead trees.
No fire.
Just presence.
Nine sat in a loose circle. No hierarchy.
Just memory and purpose.
Sasuke, resting against a jagged pillar of crystalline ash. His left arm, a Raijin-forged phantom limb of Susanoo force, hummed with barely-contained lightning. His presence made the world hesitate.
Hinata, seated opposite, her gaze like still water reflecting truths no one wanted to name.
Neji, silent and focused, the mark of Tsukuyomi behind his eye dull from meditation.
Tenten, whispering to a sealed scroll longer than most swords—one inked with the blood of a dead fable.
Lee, radiating invisible flame. His gatework had stabilized into a myth-tier technique—he no longer burned. He carried fire.
Kushina, twining a red ribbon between her fingers like it was a seal she had to hold herself together with.
Minato, golden chakra flickering like warning tape on a collapsing bridge. His speed was irrelevant now—he moved where space broke.
Kakashi, barely visible unless he wanted to be. His cloak held a faint spiral pattern—Hagoromo's mark, but altered. Like a signature written upside down.
Guy, seated with legs crossed, breath so steady even the ghosts nearby stopped screaming.
Hinata was the first to speak.
"We should prepare. Strategically. Mentally."
"And emotionally."
Neji nodded.
"Iwa, Kumo, Suna, Kiri."
"Each village will send nine. We have names for most of them now."
He looked to Sasuke.
"Want to start with threats?"
Sasuke's susanoo-arm flexed—mimicking an inhale.
"Start with Iwa."
Neji recited without inflection.
"Onoki. Deidara. Roshi. Han. Kitsuchi. Kurotsuchi. Akatsuchi. Gari. Ishikawa."
"Two confirmed Demons. Han and Roshi."
"Deidara's sponsor is unknown but likely Myth-tier, possibly tied to a god of creation or entropy."
"Onoki doesn't need one. He's Onoki."
Tenten added:
"Han's combustion trail collapsed a sector during Scenario 38. He's a Demon with mass-enhanced kinetic flow. If he gets moving, he can't be stopped—just redirected."
"Roshi's fable lets him fuse terrain into weapon-state magma. Touch-based ignition."
"If they're running formation, Kitsuchi will act as anchor. Kurotsuchi and Gari will flank. Gari's detonation style has narrative impact now—he can tag multiple metaphysical layers."
Lee, quiet:
"Their defense will be iron. Their pride will be greater."
Hinata added softly:
"And that pride can be used against them."
Minato crossed his arms.
"Suna?"
Neji again.
"Rasa. Gaara. Sasori. Chiyo. Temari. Kankuro. Pakura. Baki. Fu."
"Fu is a confirmed Demon. Gaara is… changed. His fable shifted after Scenario 34. His sand doesn't protect. It consumes."
Tenten made a face.
"Sasori rebuilt himself completely after being erased in Scenario 29. He's held together by divine threads and a grudge that predates sponsorship. I don't want to fight him."
Sasuke looked up.
"Gaara is calm now. Still. But if we see him act first…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
They all understood.
Kushina didn't look up.
But her voice was clear.
"If we go up against Suna, I'll handle Fu."
"Demon to Demon."
They turned to her. But no one protested.
The ribbon around her fingers pulsed once, then dimmed.
Neji nodded.
"Kumo."
"A. Killer Bee. Yugito. Darui. Karui. Omoi. Samui. Dodai. Toroi."
"Bee and Yugito are both confirmed Demons. Bee's sponsor is likely the Eight-Tails—title: The Song That Dragged Oceans into Silence."
"Yugito has held fire-state in stasis since Scenario 35. That's… not normal. She's pulling power from a twin-aspect Demon King. The Silent Pyre of Forgotten Queens."
Lee looked up.
"Kumo will come hard. Day One. No delays."
Tenten laughed once, without humor.
"A is still A. Punch first, shout second, apologize never."
Kakashi, finally speaking:
"They'll burn themselves out fast."
"If we last longer than three trials, they'll lose momentum."
Sasuke:
"But they'll take someone with them."
"Make sure it's not one of us."
Silence again.
Not awkward.
Focused.
Minato:
"Kiri."
Neji:
"Mei. Yagura. Utakata. Haku. Zabuza. Ao. Suigetsu. Chojuro. Mangetsu."
"Yagura and Utakata—confirmed Demons."
"Yagura is a control-type. Wide-area suppression and recursive illusions. Demon Title: The Mirror-Scaled Tyrant Beneath Still Waters."
"Utakata manipulates corrosive pressure as a miasma-state defense. Very little is known about his internal mechanisms. Demon Title: The Blooming Rot That Sleeps Beneath the Mire."
Sasuke glanced at Hinata.
"Haku?"
Hinata:
"Soft. Gentle. But if pushed… terrifying."
"He doesn't enjoy hurting people."
"But he's never failed to kill someone when he had to."
Tenten shuddered.
"Mangetsu's going to try and kill me. He still blames me for his brother's loss in Scenario 32."
"I'm going to have to kill him first."
Kushina finally looked up.
Her voice wasn't angry.
It was precise.
"Let them come."
"Let the whole world turn its knives against us."
"Because we're going to win."
"And when Naruto returns…"
She exhaled.
Soft. Steady.
"There'll still be a world waiting for him."
"There'll still be a village."
"And this time, I'll be there."
"Not as a shadow. Not as a name."
"As his mother."
Minato placed a hand on her shoulder.
Didn't speak.
Didn't need to.
Sasuke stood slowly.
The stars dimmed behind him, like even they were afraid of what might happen next.
"We know what's coming."
"We know who they are."
"But they don't know who we've become."
He looked at each of them.
"You are not the Leaf's last hope."
"You are its final memory."
"Burn it into the world."
"Because after this…"
"There will be nothing left but what we choose to leave behind."
They had been sitting in silence for too long.
The strategy talk had faded. Threat assessments made. Enemy names spoken aloud like omens. The others began to settle, recalibrating their thoughts.
But Kushina's fingers never stopped moving.
A red ribbon was wrapped around her wrist—twice, then three times, then knotted at the center. Like a seal. Like a boundary. Like she was trying to hold herself together.
She stared at it without blinking.
And then—without being asked—she began to speak.
"I used to think I was the loud one. The fierce one. The one people remembered."
Her voice was quiet. Not gentle. Just stripped raw.
"Turns out, I forgot the most important thing."
The others looked at her now.
But no one interrupted.
"My son was right there. In the village. In the orphanage. In front of me."
"And I didn't know him."
"Didn't feel him."
"Didn't even stop to ask why the name Naruto sounded familiar."
Her fingers tightened around the ribbon. It frayed slightly—like it didn't want to hold the truth either.
"That's what the system did."
"What the gods let happen."
"They stole him from me. And worse… they made me think he was no one."
"He died. Came back. Was erased. Again and again."
Her breath hitched.
But she didn't stop.
"And I was alive. Living my life. Laughing. Fighting. Smiling."
"While he was forgotten by the world that should've loved him."
She stood.
The ribbon snapped.
Red threads blew away like ash in the wind.
Kushina's eyes were dry. Her chakra burned in visible spirals down her arms.
The mark of the Demon Queen of the Dying Flame flickered behind her.
"So here's what I'm going to do."
"I'm going to fight."
"Not just for Konoha."
"Not just to survive."
"I'm going to fight so that when he walks back into the world—"
Her chakra ignited, silent and searing.
"—there's a place still standing."
"One with people who remember his name."
"One with a mother who sees him this time."
She looked up now.
At the sky.
At the gods she couldn't name.
"And when he sees me again…"
"I want to be someone worthy of being his mother."
"Not a symbol."
"Not a casualty."
"But the first hand he reaches for."
Not a single person spoke for several heartbeats.
Even the wind circled wide around her.
Because they all knew—
No matter what else the world forgot…
Kushina wouldn't.
Not again.
The Concord did not exist until it was needed.
It was not a place.
It was a judgment given form.
It hung in the sky like a scar. A ring of cracked islands and floating monoliths spiraling around a black sun that didn't give light—just weight.
Below, the world had been sectioned into five domains, each a twisted echo of its parent village. Designed by the gods. Blessed by their sponsors. Made to challenge and reflect the champions that would soon walk them.
Five stages.
Nine lives per nation.
And one Absolute Wish.
Konoha's sector—The Hollow Flame Ring—had been quiet for hours.
But the world was about to get louder.
A distant chime rippled through the sky, followed by jagged system script made of starlight.
[Pre-Scenario Window: 12 Hours Until Activation]
[Stage One Map Rotating: Konoha Centralized Entry Gate]
[Inter-Village Interactions Permitted Until Trigger]
[Warning: Early Elimination Consequences Active]
[Begin Psychological Warfare at Will.]
The first to arrive was Suna.
They came as sand and wind—appearing at the outer edge of Konoha's sector like a whisper of an old storm.
At their front: Rasa.
His cloak was stitched with golden thread shaped like falling suns. His eyes were lined with metal, his hands gloved in crushed myth. He didn't carry a gourd—he didn't need to anymore.
"Konoha," he said, voice dry as a battlefield forgotten by rain. "Still standing. I was beginning to think you were a rumor."
Behind him stood Gaara, hooded, silent.
Sasori, red-eyed and smirking.
Fu, drifting above the ground, her back arched like she was waiting for a fight to land first.
Neji stepped forward.
"Rasa. Always a pleasure."
Rasa smiled without warmth.
"We'll see if you still say that in twenty-four hours."
Kushina folded her arms. The seal over her chest shimmered faintly with heat.
"If you're trying to intimidate us, you'll have to do more than bring puppets and sand."
Sasori's voice, sharp and smooth:
"I'm not here to scare you."
"I'm here to see if your blood makes better ink than last time."
Lee raised a brow.
"You still talk like an artist."
"But your brushwork was sloppy the last time we met."
Fu giggled—tilted her head, eyes alight with wild mischief.
"Are you flirting with him?"
"Because if you are, I get to kill you second instead of first."
Before anyone could reply, the sky cracked again.
[New Arrival Detected: Village – Kumo]
Lightning bloomed.
And A arrived like thunder remembering it used to be a man.
Killer Bee strode beside him, humming bars from a dead language. The words summoned sparks. Not metaphor—literal sparks.
Yugito followed last, wrapped in black-and-blue fire, the outline of a lioness pulsing at her heels. Her eyes never blinked. She didn't look at the others. She looked through them.
A rolled his neck. The sound echoed.
"Is this it?" he asked, voice like dropped stone. "These are the flames we're supposed to fear?"
"They look like ash already."
Guy stepped forward.
Smiling.
"Be careful how close you get to embers."
"The ones that glow are the ones that still burn."
Yugito turned to Kushina.
Their eyes met.
Two demons. Two flames.
One born of quiet regret.
The other forged in controlled fury.
Yugito's voice was soft. Like a lullaby humming over a funeral pyre.
"He's not here."
"So why do I still smell his scent all over your chakra?"
Kushina didn't flinch.
"Because you're about to learn what kind of mother loses a son…"
She stepped forward.
"And what kind of fire she becomes to get him back."
Before the tension snapped, another crack in the sky.
[New Arrival Detected: Village – Kiri]
Fog rolled in—salt-heavy, red at the edges.
Yagura appeared first, eyes closed, hand resting on a lacquered staff.
Behind him: Haku, walking barefoot on crystallized mist. Zabuza's sword trailed behind him, connected by thin strings of chakra—not wielded, but commanded.
Mei walked ahead of them all. Her hair was shorter now. Her mouth was a smile that warned the tongue not to taste it.
"So many strong men," she said, glancing between Minato and Kakashi. "And yet, none of you managed to hold onto Naruto. What a waste."
Hinata tensed.
Sasuke narrowed his eye.
Minato stayed still.
But Kushina—
Her flames didn't rise.
They compressed.
A coil. A breath held.
"You're welcome to die trying to replace him."
Yagura opened one eye.
"I didn't expect him to be absent."
"It changes the prophecy."
Zabuza spat to the side.
"Doesn't change the outcome."
"Leaf still bleeds."
Another crack. Another warning.
[New Arrival Detected: Village – Iwa]
And then came Deidara.
Riding a clay bird that cracked with stormlight, laughing like nothing mattered except the things he could blow up.
Roshi followed, shoulders molten.
Han behind him, walking like a living planet.
Onoki drifted in like a specter of inevitability.
Kurotsuchi stood between them, arms crossed, eyes burning.
Onoki pointed at Sasuke.
"You're the one they say outpaced Minato."
Sasuke didn't reply.
Onoki grunted.
"Doesn't matter. You'll be ground to dust just the same."
Deidara cackled from above.
"I'll paint the sky with your fables."
"Call it: Obsolete Flame in Twelve Strokes."
Tenten muttered to Neji:
"That's not even a good title."
Hinata finally stepped forward.
She looked at them all.
All the enemies.
All the armies.
All the gods behind their eyes.
"I don't care how long you've waited."
"How strong you've become."
"What sponsors whisper in your heads."
She pointed at the center of the arena—where the Absolute Wish still pulsed, glowing red.
"We're not here for that."
She turned back to her team.
Eyes steady.
Voice certain.
"We're here for him."
The system flared.
[Scenario Lock Imminent]
[Champions, Return to Your Sectors]
The gods began to descend.
And the war began tomorrow.
Night fell over the Hollow Flame Ring.
Not real night.
There was no sun here. No moon. No stars.
Just a shifting, smoldering sky that glowed red from the inside like something ancient was trying to breathe through it.
But the system dimmed the light when it knew humans needed darkness. Or maybe it just wanted to see what they'd say when they thought the world wasn't listening.
Konoha's sector was quiet now.
And so the Nine gathered.
No plans. No drills. No more strategies.
Just a final night before the world demanded blood for remembrance.
Kushina sat with her back against a boulder. Minato beside her, his head tilted back like he was counting flickers in the sky.
She didn't speak first.
But he did.
"When this is over, I want to plant something."
She blinked.
"What?"
"A tree. Doesn't matter what kind. Something dumb. Something small. I just…"
He trailed off.
"I want something in this world that doesn't ask us to save it."
Kushina's fingers curled into fists.
"I just want him to come back."
"And remember me."
Minato looked at her.
Softly. No judgment.
"He will."
"Even if the world forgets again—we won't."
Elsewhere, Hinata sat near the edge of the ring, staring down at the abyss that separated their sector from the others. The empty space below looked like a throat with no end.
Neji knelt beside her, quiet.
After a moment, he asked:
"Does it hurt?"
She blinked.
"What?"
"Knowing he's alive. And still not here."
Hinata's voice was distant.
"It hurts more knowing what he gave up so we could be."
Neji nodded.
"I never apologized."
She turned.
"For what?"
"For resenting you. For… everything that happened when we were children."
He looked at his hands.
The eye branded by Tsukuyomi pulsed once under his brow.
"I was taught that your blood meant more than mine. That I was a branch. You were a root."
He paused.
"But you chose to grow."
Hinata smiled. Just faintly.
"Then let's make sure there's something left for him to grow into."
Lee and Guy were training in slow motion.
Not combat.
Just form.
Movements carved like temple prayers. Fists through air. Breath synced like fire being born.
Kakashi sat nearby, watching them like a painter studying the world before color was invented.
Guy spoke mid-kick.
"Do you think he'll be proud?"
Lee didn't stop moving.
"Yes."
Guy nodded.
"Then I can die happy."
Kakashi muttered without looking up.
"You're not dying."
"None of us are dying."
"We're going to win. And when he comes back—"
His voice caught.
"He'll never have to fight again."
Tenten leaned over a set of old fable scrolls. Her hands were stained with fresh ink, her wrists bandaged where the seals had burned.
Sasuke stood across from her, silent.
She didn't look up.
"You don't sleep either, huh?"
Sasuke didn't reply.
"I've been trying to write down everything I know about the others."
"Not just their powers. Their tells. Their favorite techniques. The way they move when they think they're safe."
She looked up now.
Eyes tired, but alight.
"If we all make it out, I'm going to publish it."
"A field guide to surviving your enemies. A history of our war. Maybe even a few dumb jokes at Deidara's expense."
Sasuke stared at her.
"He won't read it."
"He's going to be dead."
Tenten smirked.
"That's the idea."
He started to walk away.
But then she said:
"Sasuke."
He stopped.
"Do you think Naruto would have fought in this?"
A beat.
Then another.
And then, very quietly:
"No."
He turned.
Lightning flickered faintly in his phantom arm.
"But he would've made sure we survived it."
Silence held.
Until the system began to stir.
A faint hum. A low vibration in the soul.
Like a heartbeat made of countdown.
They all gathered at the center again.
Nine.
Not a team.
A memory made of movement and fire and loss.
Kushina spoke first.
"No speeches."
Minato added:
"No regrets."
Neji stepped forward.
"No second deaths."
Lee raised a fist.
"No fear."
Tenten clicked her scroll shut.
"No mercy."
Kakashi lifted his head.
"No surrender."
Guy smiled.
"No backing down."
Hinata looked up.
"No forgetting."
Sasuke clenched his lightning fist.
"No one left behind."
And above them—
The sky cracked.
The scenario screamed.
And the gods sharpened their eyes.
It had been six months since the sky last remembered the name Naruto Uzumaki.
The world had moved on.
The system no longer counted him.
The gods did not speak his name.
His old fables were buried under rewrites.
His old friendships lived in echo.
And yet—
He still existed.
Somewhere.
Alone.
Naruto sat cross-legged in the heart of a hollow star.
Not metaphor.
The cave he had found—on the edge of a world that wasn't on any map—was built like a planetary system, but inverted.
Galaxies spun inside walls of stone.
The sky had no outside.
Time had stopped asking him what day it was.
And still, he remained.
Meditation had stopped being a technique weeks ago.
Now, it was architecture.
Each breath tore down what remained of the Naruto the system had once allowed to exist.
Each exhale built something new.
But slowly.
Painfully.
He no longer wore a name.
Even his thoughts hesitated to call himself anything but:
"That boy."
"The one they forgot."
"The echo."
"The shard."
Around him were the fragments of self he'd sealed.
Little floating sigils, orbiting like memory-satellites:
A scarf from someone who once loved him.
A prayer tag that should have exploded but didn't.
A menu window, cracked and dark, still showing [Fox Tale: Critical Integrity].
A single kanji carved into stone: "Hope", written by a child he failed.
Fox Tale stirred.
Not with words.
With weight.
Like a second soul curling through his skin.
Then came the voice.
Not booming.
Not divine.
Just there.
"You've almost erased everything."
"Are you sure what you're building can survive?"
Naruto didn't move.
His voice was a whisper scraped out of time.
"It has to."
Fox Tale pulsed again.
"Do you even know what it is you're becoming?"
He closed his eyes.
"Not yet."
"But I know what I'm not."
"I'm not a tool. I'm not a player. I'm not a prophecy."
He exhaled.
"I'm not a memory."
The cave trembled.
Something responded—not from within, but from the past.
Another flash.
Another timeline.
A vision.
He was eight.
In a house he didn't remember being adopted into.
The man was cruel.
The mother was silent.
The beatings were routine.
And one day, the blood came.
But it wasn't his.
He ran.
The system rewrote it.
He woke in the orphanage again.
No one remembered the adoption.
Not even him.
Until now.
Back in the cave, Naruto opened his eyes.
A new scar glowed on his chest—etched in the shape of a truth denied.
He placed his hand over it.
Let it burn.
Fox Tale asked again.
"If you could end your story right now… how would you make it end?"
Naruto stared at the floating sigils.
Then the void beyond.
"I wouldn't."
"Not yet."
"Because there are still people in the story."
Fox Tale was silent.
Then—
A new sigil appeared.
One he hadn't made.
A book.
Leatherbound. No title. No pages.
But he knew what it was.
The one Hinata had left.
Tales of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi.
It opened.
Pages still blank.
But on the first one—
Chapter 1: A boy named Menma lives alone in a world that never knew him.
Naruto whispered.
"Menma…"
Something in him shifted.
Like a lock.
Like a heartbeat.
Like an answer.
Fox Tale pulsed.
"You remember it now, don't you?"
"The day you read this. The day you were going to—"
Naruto cut it off.
"Yeah."
"And I chose to live."
He smiled.
For the first time in months.
Even if no one could see it.
He stood.
His shadow unfolded.
It stretched far—farther than the cave, farther than the light, farther than the system could trace.
He was no longer meditating.
He was becoming.
"This isn't done."
"But it's enough to begin again."
The sigils shattered.
Reformed into light.
And the world shifted—
As Naruto took a step forward, still hidden.
Still uncounted.
But no longer lost.
He didn't leave the cave.
Not yet.
The air had started to thin. Not because there was no oxygen, but because the world itself had grown tired of sustaining someone who didn't exist.
Time passed in fragments.
Some days, he slept.
Other days, he floated.
Sometimes, he talked to himself—just to prove he could still speak.
But always…
He rebuilt.
The stars that spun within the cave walls had grown slower.
Not because they were real, but because they were responding.
To him.
To his breath.
To the shape of the thing he was becoming.
Naruto didn't know what his name meant anymore.
Every time he tried to remember what it felt like to be "Naruto Uzumaki," the image blurred.
Sometimes he was that boy who ate spoiled ramen and chased approval.
Sometimes he was the creature gods tried to erase with kindness and cruelty alike.
Sometimes he was just a scream.
A scream without lungs. Without origin. Without anyone left to hear it.
The book sat unopened at his side.
He wasn't ready.
Not to read it.
Not to become the boy inside.
He meditated again.
But this time—he invited the memory.
Another forgotten timeline.
He was thirteen.
The world had not yet fallen into divine hands.
But his had already begun to tremble.
He remembered standing on the Hokage monument, watching the sun fall behind a village that called him nothing.
No missions. No recognition. No family.
A boy with a dream—but no name attached to it.
And then, the fall.
Not the metaphorical one.
The literal one.
A misstep.
A half-second.
The wind rushing faster than thought.
And in that moment—he hadn't screamed.
He had smiled.
Until something caught him.
Not a person.
A thought.
"What if it gets better tomorrow?"
He never remembered where the thought came from.
Until now.
Back in the cave, he placed a hand on his chest.
The scar there pulsed again—like a heartbeat not fully claimed.
He carved a word into the air with his finger.
Not chakra.
Not fablecraft.
Just will.
"Live."
Fox Tale stirred.
"You're stabilizing."
"The world still doesn't remember you. But it's starting to make room again."
Naruto frowned.
"I'm not ready."
The voice didn't argue.
It never had.
Fox Tale simply listened.
Because Naruto wasn't like the others.
He didn't follow the system.
He didn't break it either.
He simply refused to die.
Another memory.
This one more recent.
A timeline where the war ended.
He was a hero.
They threw parades. Statues. Dances with his name carved into every flag.
And yet, he couldn't feel it.
He wandered that village for years—surrounded by gratitude and silence.
Because no one actually knew him.
Just the version that won.
Not the one who had suffered.
He erased that self too.
Not with anger.
With mercy.
His chest now bore eight scars.
Each one a name he no longer needed to carry.
Each one a version of himself that could finally rest.
He stood again.
His legs were thinner than before.
But stronger.
His balance was perfect.
Because gravity didn't control him anymore.
The book glowed.
Only faintly.
Still closed.
Still waiting.
Naruto sat again.
This time not in pain.
But in discipline.
"Not yet," he whispered.
"I'm not ready to be him yet."
"But I'm going to become someone he would be proud to know."
Above him, the stars in the cave spun faster again.
Like they were watching.
And somewhere, far beyond that forgotten sky—
A system flickered.
An error message blinked once.
And vanished.
Because even now…
The story couldn't calculate what he was becoming.
The Concord was not a battlefield.
It was a system-made sin.
A floating continent broken into five territories, suspended around a sun that had no warmth—only gravity. This star was not celestial. It was divine, hollowed, and weaponized.
Each village had its own ring. Its own terrain. Its own legend to burn into the world.
The gods had built it this way.
Not to test them.
To judge them.
Konoha's ring was the first to activate.
A forest without roots. A valley of petrified flame. Mountains sculpted from memory.
Ash settled in the sky like snowfall that had forgotten its name.
At the center of it all, the nine from the Leaf arrived.
Not with glory.
Not with flourish.
They arrived like the final chapter of something the world wasn't ready to finish.
They stood in silence for a moment.
Each of them knew what was coming.
No speeches.
No countdowns.
Just instinct pulling them apart.
They didn't need to discuss it.
They knew who needed to walk with who.
Because in wars like this—not everyone gets to return.
Sasuke left first.
He didn't say goodbye.
He didn't need to.
His movements didn't ripple the air. They cut through it—like a sword made of unfinished sentences.
He walked toward the north sector of the ring, where trees hung upside down and shadows grew longer when you looked away.
None of them stopped him.
Because they knew Sasuke didn't fight to win.
He fought so someone else could walk away.
Tenten watched him vanish into the haze and muttered:
"That man probably won't speak to another human until this whole thing ends."
Neji didn't look up.
"That man probably plans to end it himself."
Guy and Kakashi moved next.
Not as a unit.
Just… in sync.
Like two halves of an equation that had never needed solving—only surviving.
They said nothing until they crossed into the burnt river path that wound around the outer cliffs.
Then Kakashi said:
"So. Last one standing buys the drinks?"
Guy grinned.
"Deal."
"But I'm paying either way."
Kakashi chuckled.
"Still the same idiot."
Guy's voice softened, just slightly.
"Still the same friend."
And then they were gone.
Minato and Kushina went together.
She burned.
He hovered.
They walked in a direction with no path because they'd already made their decision.
Kushina's eyes were darker than fire now—quiet. Measured. But every step she took left embers behind like a mother marking her way back to her son.
Minato watched her, silent for a long time.
Finally:
"When this is over… I'd like to build something with you."
Kushina didn't stop walking.
"You already did."
She looked back at him.
"He's not here. But he still exists."
"So we fight until the world is ready to remember."
Neji, Tenten, and Lee moved as a trio.
Not by strategy.
But by gravity.
Some configurations weren't tactical. They were emotional.
Tenten walked ahead, scroll already half-unrolled. She was muttering trap locations to herself, flicking ink into the air as she moved.
Neji walked beside her. Calm. Eyes active. Already mapping the sector with precision born from obsession.
Lee walked last.
His steps were measured.
His fists were loose.
His gaze was steady.
He didn't speak until they reached the first overlook—a ridge with a view of what looked like a battlefield sculpted from broken mirrors.
"Do you feel it?"
Tenten blinked.
"Feel what?"
Lee's voice was soft.
"Everything in this place wants to see who gives up first."
Neji:
"Then we make sure it's not us."
Tenten smirked.
"Lee, if you even think about opening a gate without telling us first, I swear I will throw you off this cliff myself."
Lee grinned.
"Understood."
"But if I fall, I will run back up the air itself."
Tenten looked at Neji.
"Why do we let him talk?"
Hinata walked alone.
Not because she had to.
Because she chose to.
She walked through the southern sector where the trees whispered in the voices of those who had died in the original Konoha—before the systems, before the gods.
She didn't flinch.
She listened.
A child's laugh echoed from somewhere in the branches.
A flicker of white—like a blur of cloth too fast to see.
She paused.
And in that breath…
A voice whispered in her mind.
"If he were here… he'd be walking beside you."
Hinata smiled.
"He's not gone."
"He's just… preparing."
Somewhere behind her, a rustle in the wind carried his name.
But no one was there to say it.
They had scattered now.
Nine fragments of the same village.
And the system responded.
[Phase One: Initialization Complete.]
[All Sectors Online.]
[Cross-Village Contact: Now Permitted.]
[Victory Condition: Only One Village May Remain.]
[Trial One Begins In 00:10:00.]
The Concord shivered.
The sun cracked once—silently.
The gods leaned closer.
And the war began to listen.
Somewhere in the North Sector of the Concord, the wind stopped breathing.
Not just stillness.
Refusal.
The trees bent the wrong direction. The sun overhead cracked like glass held too long in divine heat. And the battlefield—the one shaped by the system's memories of Iwagakure—twisted.
Because Sasuke Uchiha was no longer walking across it.
He was imposing something on top of it.
And the world couldn't decide if it wanted to survive that imposition.
He moved through the ash field like a blade already drawn.
No wasted motion.
No theatrics.
Just silence that cut deeper than sound.
The first to intercept him were four from Iwa.
Gari, his palms already glowing with detonation chakra.
Kurotsuchi, stone armor activated, trailing molten seismic lines.
Akatsuchi, towering and grinning like a man who thought he couldn't die.
And Ishikawa, Onoki's shadow technique specialist—already phasing between layers of terrain.
They didn't hesitate.
Because they didn't understand.
Yet.
Gari struck first.
He blurred into position, aiming a detonation-palm at Sasuke's blind side. The moment it connected, a trigger word formed on his tongue.
"Explode."
He hit.
He felt the jutsu connect.
And then—
He blinked.
He was standing ten feet away.
Arm broken. Chest fractured. Mouth filled with ash.
Sasuke hadn't moved.
Not visibly.
"Wh—"
But Sasuke didn't let him finish.
He flicked a single finger.
A line of black lightning arced from the ground up Gari's spine—and his words short-circuited into vapor.
Kurotsuchi responded next.
She pulled the terrain itself up like a wave, stone fists slamming down from three angles.
Sasuke didn't dodge.
He lifted his left arm—the one made not of flesh, but of condensed Susanoo folded into Raijinshu—and pointed.
"Fall."
He said the word like it was a truth the earth had forgotten.
And the stone obeyed.
It shattered in midair.
Not like stone breaking—but like narrative collapsing.
Kurotsuchi stumbled back, sweat forming instantly.
She couldn't breathe.
"What—what did he just do—?"
Akatsuchi barreled forward, enraged.
He was the tank. The indomitable weight.
He leapt, preparing to collapse a mountain's worth of chakra into a single seismic slam.
Sasuke looked at him.
Just looked.
And the air bent sideways.
The terrain beneath Akatsuchi suddenly wasn't there.
He fell through a space that shouldn't exist—landed on his back a hundred meters away.
His ribs cracked on impact.
He vomited blood and static.
Ishikawa finally activated his technique.
He flickered into visibility just long enough to chain a shadow tag across Sasuke's legs.
"Caught—"
But then he saw it.
Not Sasuke's body.
Sasuke's world.
The shadow under Sasuke didn't behave like shadow.
It pulsed with lightning and grief and something older.
It rejected him.
Ishikawa screamed.
"He's not following the rules—! He's—!"
His words were eaten by wind.
Sasuke finally moved.
One step.
And the world changed.
The terrain folded.
Not visually.
Not physically.
Causally.
Everything that had happened five seconds ago shifted—replayed—reversed—reasserted.
Gari hit the ground again. This time missing two fingers.
Kurotsuchi found herself kneeling—no idea how her knees had hit the dirt.
Akatsuchi blinked and the sky was upside down.
Ishikawa simply vanished—no explosion. No scream.
Just absence.
And in the center of it—
Sasuke exhaled.
It was like the battlefield was paper.
And Sasuke was the editor.
Not rewriting the story.
Just choosing which parts to leave in.
His world pressed outward.
The sky groaned.
A low system hum began.
[Narrative Instability Detected]
[Champion: Uchiha, Sasuke is Exerting Unrecognized Worldview]
Sasuke drew a short blade.
It wasn't glowing.
It wasn't enhanced.
It was just real.
"I'm not a god."
"I'm not a hero."
He stepped forward, blade carving sparks into fractured dirt.
"I'm not even a shinobi anymore."
"I'm a consequence."
Gari charged again—desperate.
He screamed.
He activated every seal in his body.
But before he reached Sasuke—
The battlefield bent in a direction that shouldn't exist.
Sasuke appeared behind him.
Blade unsheathed.
Blood silent.
Gari fell.
Sasuke didn't look back.
Kurotsuchi's voice cracked through the comm-link—desperate.
"This isn't a person—he's—he's a threadcutter! He's rewriting—he's imposing—!"
But the system didn't care.
The system didn't protect from truths it had no way to understand.
Akatsuchi made one final move.
He rose. Roared.
"You can't take all of us!"
Sasuke stopped walking.
He turned.
Eye glowing.
Voice still low.
"Then send more."
The rest of Iwa didn't come.
Not that day.
Because four had gone in.
And none came back.
The wind returned an hour later.
But it moved around the spot where Sasuke had walked.
Because it remembered.
Even if the gods tried not to.
Far from the crackling distortion Sasuke had left behind, a very different kind of battle was unfolding.
No divine pressure bent the terrain.
No time rewrote itself.
No shadows dissolved like paper.
Here, the rules still applied.
And Team Gai was bleeding for every inch of ground they held.
They had run into the first enemy unit fifteen minutes after splitting off.
A squad of four from Suna.
Not just fodder.
Pakura, who moved like flame bottled in flesh.
Baki, lean and sharp and always one command ahead.
Temari, her fan unreadable, her chakra swirling in unnatural patterns.
And Chiyo, alive again—rebuilt with forbidden strings, moving not like a puppet master, but like a prophecy still looking for its ending.
The three of them—Neji, Tenten, Lee—stood against them.
And it already wasn't going well.
The opening salvo had been devastating.
Tenten barely managed to block Pakura's first assault—a searing, flame-threaded kick that would have incinerated her entire scroll belt.
Lee had clashed with Baki and Temari at once, using gates just to stay in the fight, not even gain ground.
Neji was fending off Chiyo's puppet chain, trying to track too many moving chakra points at once.
They weren't losing.
But they sure as hell weren't winning.
Tenten skidded backward, her boots carving trenches into blackened soil.
"Alright, new plan."
"Avoid Pakura. Don't let Temari build up momentum. And if that old hag strings one more chakra seal to my spine, I'm going to burn this forest down."
Neji replied through grit teeth, his Byakugan spinning.
"Temari's wind is infused with divine rotation. It's being redirected mid-flight."
"There's no predictable vector."
Lee ducked a sand-wrapped kunai, twisted into a handstand mid-air, and kicked off the bark of a burning tree.
"We must split them up."
"They are stronger together."
"Let's give them isolation."
They moved like they had trained for this their entire lives.
Because they had.
Neji surged forward.
His strikes weren't elegant—they were precise. Targeted.
He didn't aim for Chiyo's core. He aimed for her memory threads, the glowing lines of forgotten lives that held her together.
Chiyo clicked her tongue.
"You think I haven't fought Hyuga before?"
She pulled one thread. A puppet detonated between them.
Neji flew back—shoulder scorched.
But he landed.
Spun.
And waited.
Tenten launched herself over the battlefield, tossing down six scrolls mid-air.
"Formation Delta."
Lee caught the cue immediately.
He kicked a falling scroll—activating a trap Tenten had woven hours ago.
The ground beneath Pakura shattered, runes glowing.
Fire swallowed her in a cylinder of reverse-breathing compression.
She didn't scream.
She laughed.
"I like this one."
She kicked out of the seal mid-activation—burning through it.
Tenten blinked.
"Well. That didn't work."
Lee landed beside her, bruised, bleeding, smiling.
"Try again."
Neji and Chiyo were locked in a death waltz.
Her puppets danced like memories with claws.
Neji dodged.
Struck.
Dodged again.
"She's not attacking to kill," he muttered. "She's watching."
"Learning."
"She's recording our movements."
Tenten whispered into her comm seal:
"Then let's give her the wrong ones."
Lee's voice echoed back.
"Understood."
The three of them moved again—this time, out of sync on purpose.
Lee stumbled mid-step, throwing off Baki's rhythm.
Neji delayed his rotation just long enough for Chiyo to strike first—only to reverse it, catching her puppet from behind.
Tenten drew two fake scrolls, flaring chakra trails meant to mimic sealing techniques she hadn't mastered.
The enemy adjusted.
And in adjusting—they faltered.
Temari finally spoke.
"Something's wrong."
Pakura answered with another burning leap.
"They're tricking us."
Baki narrowed his eyes.
"No. They're getting desperate."
"Which means we're close."
He moved to break formation.
To finish it.
And that's when Lee opened the Fifth Gate.
The forest bent.
But not like with Sasuke.
No rewrites. No narrative distortion.
Just raw, earned force.
His skin flushed.
His muscles screamed.
His voice cracked as he shouted:
"For Konoha—!"
"For the people who believe in me!"
"For him!"
He launched into the fray.
Tenten dropped a chain bomb behind him.
Neji followed from above, falling like a blade of wind.
It was coordinated chaos.
A blitz with no room for error.
And for one moment—
One single moment—
They had the upper hand.
But then—
Chiyo snapped her wrist.
And the puppets collapsed into each other.
They fused.
Baki struck Lee mid-air, cracking bone.
Temari released a fan swing that shattered Tenten's defensive scrolls.
Pakura slammed a palm into Neji's chest and burned memory—not chakra.
They hit the ground.
Hard.
Alive.
But barely.
Lee groaned, pushing himself up with shaking arms.
"Again."
Neji coughed.
Blood.
"We can't win like this."
Tenten wiped her eyes.
"Then we don't win."
"We survive."
"Until someone does."
Above them, the system pulsed.
[Konoha Combatants: Critical Condition Detected]
[Suggestion: Retreat or Call Support]
They ignored it.
Because there was no one coming.
Sasuke fought his battles alone.
Naruto was gone.
This—this was their war.
And they would fight it the way they always had.
Together.
Lee wasn't moving.
Neji was barely breathing.
Tenten stood between them and the end.
Pakura's fire circled her ankles like wolves deciding how to tear her down.
Temari's fan was raised, ready to split the air.
Chiyo's puppet—a godless construct of history rewritten—danced with a dozen blades glowing red.
And Baki—
He had begun walking forward.
One step at a time.
No rush.
No mercy.
"You have nothing left."
"Konoha's hope ends here."
Tenten dropped the last scroll.
It unspooled on its own.
Not because she activated it.
But because the world recognized what she was about to do.
The sky split.
Not metaphorically.
A crack appeared above her, jagged and wide—like the first line of a broken story.
The scroll did not glow.
The world around it dimmed.
Color faded.
Sound dulled.
Time slowed.
And above her head—
A spiral of gold began to form.
She spoke.
Her voice was not Tenten's.
It was something older, wrapped in her lungs, borrowed from a dream no one dared write down.
"In the beginning…"
"Heaven and Earth were one."
"Order was unformed. Chaos reigned."
"The gods did not yet divide the sky from the soil."
The wind stopped.
Temari's fan stopped.
Flame froze in place.
Even gravity forgot how to move forward.
"And then came the Sword of Rupture."
"The weapon not forged in fire, but in principle."
"The wound from which creation itself split."
"I do not wield it."
"I remember it."
"I unseal it."
She raised her hand.
And the spiral in the air compressed.
The world screamed.
The ground beneath her warped into glyphs no mortal had drawn.
Celestial gears spun above—not chakra, not jutsu, but the bones of the system itself groaning in protest.
Pakura stumbled back.
"That's—"
Chiyo gasped.
"It can't be—"
Tenten's voice thundered:
"Behold the Sword that ended the first unity."
"The final authority."
"The betrayal of nothingness that gave birth to possibility."
She pointed the unsealed scroll forward.
And the system said:
[Enuma Elish: Sword of Rupture, Star of Origin]
A line of gold carved through reality—
Not as light.
As a fracture.
The air didn't explode. It peeled.
Like the world was just a skin stretched over something real beneath.
And that real thing?
It hated what was happening.
A beam surged from the spiral above her—
Not fire.
Not plasma.
Not energy.
A concept.
Pakura disintegrated instantly.
No fire.
No sound.
Just rejection.
Temari's fan reversed itself. The metal bent backward. Her chakra bled out of her body in silence.
Chiyo's puppet crumbled into sand—and even the idea of its blades vanished.
Baki tried to move.
He didn't.
Because time around him had ceased to exist.
He screamed without breath.
And the beam reached him.
Everything in its path was undone.
Not killed.
Not destroyed.
Erased.
Like none of them had ever stepped foot on this battlefield.
The earth tore open behind them—into a canyon of molten time, devouring the trees, the sky, the stones, the records.
The scroll burst into flame, eating itself in reverse.
Tenten dropped to one knee.
Lee saw nothing.
Only light.
Neji couldn't breathe—but felt the pressure leave.
When it cleared—
There was no crater.
There was absence.
Just a line in the earth.
A perfect, smooth wound.
Stretching to the horizon.
And in the middle of it all…
Tenten was breathing hard.
Alive.
Barely.
Her skin cracked.
Blood at her lips.
But her hands didn't shake.
Lee groaned from behind.
"Wh… what was that…?"
Neji tried to sit up.
Failed.
"Did you just rewrite—reality?"
Tenten stood.
Wiped her chin.
"Not quite."
She looked at the scroll burning to ash at her feet.
"I just reminded the world where its first scar came from."
Far above, beyond the reach of mortals…
A few gods stood.
Watching.
Silent.
And afraid.
The sky did not crack.
It unfolded.
A ripple moved across the Concord like a breath taken by something too large to ever exhale.
And then:
[System Notice: Scenario 40 – Balance Deviation Detected]
[Leaf Village: Combat Performance Exceeds Tolerated Parameters]
[Adjustment Required]
[Solution: A Champion Must Be Chosen]
Silence fell across all five sectors.
Even the gods did not speak.
Not yet.
[Scenario Rule Insertion: Divine Interference Authorized]
[Condition: One Konoha Champion Must Die]
[Selecting: Randomized from Active Combatants…]
Guy felt it before the name appeared.
Like his soul had already braced for it.
His knees hit the ground before the system finished.
And then—
[Selected: Rock Lee]
[Transposition Initiated.]
Lightning cracked the sector open.
But not from chakra.
From the system itself.
Lee vanished in an instant.
One breath, he stood—bruised, tired, triumphant.
The next, he was gone.
Guy rose so fast the ground cracked under his feet.
"No—no, no, no—NO!"
He reached out.
There was nothing to reach for.
His chakra lashed out wildly. He burned a tree down trying to follow the trail.
There wasn't one.
Not a seal. Not a summoning. Not a space-time mark.
Just absence.
[Secondary System Announcement: To Restore Equilibrium, All Villages May Now Engage the Selected Champion Without Limit.]
[New Rule: No Interference Permitted.]
[Location: Hidden.]
[Condition: One Versus All.]
And from above, in the system that watched…
The gods spoke.
Amaterasu:
"Unacceptable. The Leaf has unbalanced the narrative."
Susanoo:
"The blade cuts too deeply. The Uchiha rewrites what should be witnessed."
Omoikane:
"And now a mortal wields a sword from before the first truth?"
Takemikazuchi:
"This is no longer a scenario. It is a slaughter."
Tsukuyomi:
"Then balance it."
Hachiman:
"Cut something precious from the narrative."
Inari:
"Make them feel loss."
Guy wasn't listening.
He had fallen to his knees again.
His hands dug into the ash like he could pull Lee back from wherever they took him.
"He's a child."
"He's just a boy."
The sector's sky shimmered.
A screen opened above.
Not a system window.
A punishment display.
It showed Lee.
Standing alone.
In a gray wasteland made of ruined terrain.
Around him?
Twenty-eight enemy champions.
Multiple from each village.
Some he had fought before.
Some who had watched from afar.
Some who had been waiting for a chance to break the Leaf's core.
Lee said nothing.
He just took off his ankle weights.
And smiled.
Guy screamed.
"LET ME GO TO HIM—!"
"PLEASE—! I BEG YOU—!"
He activated every gate.
First.
Second.
Third.
He opened the fifth while screaming into the air.
"I'LL TRADE—DO YOU HEAR ME—! I'LL TRADE MY LIFE FOR HIS!"
The system pulsed red.
[Interference Prohibited]
Guy collapsed.
His knees hit stone.
His fists broke the earth beneath him.
But it didn't matter.
The battlefield had become a cage.
And his student had been thrown into it like a lamb before gods craving equilibrium.
The image of Lee on the screen remained.
Still smiling.
Still standing.
Hands trembling.
But feet planted.
One of the Kumo champions stepped forward.
Toroi, magnetic seal chakra pulsing.
"You shouldn't have come alone."
Lee cracked his neck.
"I didn't choose to."
"But I won't die like I was dragged here."
Guy could barely speak now.
His voice was raw.
Wrecked.
Broken.
"Don't you die on me, Lee…"
He whispered it again.
"Don't you dare—"
His hand clenched into a fist, soaked in blood from pounding the ground.
"You're my proudest moment."
Neji arrived too late.
Tenten stumbled behind him.
They both saw the screen.
Both saw Guy.
Both knew what was happening.
Neji fell to one knee.
"No…"
Tenten didn't cry.
But her scrolls began to burn.
The screen pulsed again.
Lee took his stance.
He had nothing left.
No support.
No jounin.
No gods.
Just one mantra:
"Youth is not about how long you live."
"It's about how brightly you burn while you're here."
And then—
He ran.
The world gave him no path.
So he carved his own.
Twenty-eight champions.
A coalition of every village.
Even the gods whispered:
"He cannot win."
But Rock Lee did not look afraid.
He stood barefoot on a battlefield of ruin.
Fists wrapped in cloth burned to ash.
Chakra cracked his skin like lightning veins.
And still—he smiled.
"I was never supposed to be here."
His voice trembled, but not with fear.
With purpose.
"I had no bloodline."
"No hidden potential. No gods whispering my name."
He raised a broken fist.
"All I had… was him."
His eyes lifted.
Like he could see through the screen.
Through the system.
Through the gods.
To Guy-sensei—sobbing somewhere he could not reach.
"You found me."
"A boy with no future."
"And you gave me one."
"You made me believe I could still burn."
His enemies advanced.
He didn't flinch.
"To me…"
"Youth has never been about age."
"Or strength."
"Or how long I can survive."
He stepped forward.
One foot.
Then the other.
Bones grinding.
Lungs begging.
"Youth is getting up every time I'm knocked down."
"It's choosing to try—even when the gods say no."
The first wave struck.
Darui's lightning lashed toward his chest.
Lee ducked—too fast—and countered with a spin-kick that cracked the man's jaw.
Another attacked from behind—Temari, recovered.
Lee turned, caught the swing, and shattered her fan with a single blow.
Each movement hurt.
Each breath tasted like fire.
"They told me I couldn't be a shinobi."
"They told me hard work would never match talent."
His hands bled.
Flesh torn to the bone.
"But Guy-sensei said effort…"
He ducked under a spear.
"Is a kind of genius."
He swept the attacker's legs.
Dodged the blade from the side.
"So I trained."
A punch connected to his shoulder—he spun with it, flipped, and countered midair.
"I trained until I couldn't stand."
Another blow hit his spine.
He screamed—but turned it into momentum.
"I trained until my tears carved mountains."
Twenty-four remained.
He couldn't feel his left side.
But he was still moving.
Still burning.
"I don't need to win."
"I just want to be remembered."
He punched through a wall of sand.
"Not as a god."
He broke a chakra chain in half with his elbow.
"Not as a legend."
He knocked a jounin from Kiri unconscious with a rising knee.
"But as a genius of hard work."
The sky dimmed.
Something cracked.
Not in the arena.
Above.
Far above.
A ripple.
A space outside space.
And the Fates arrived.
Three figures in cloaks of woven eternity.
One held the spindle.
One drew the thread.
And the last—the youngest—held the blade.
They watched Lee.
Their voices a chorus of ending.
"He burns too brightly."
"His thread strains the story."
"He is not allowed."
Lee fell to one knee.
Blood pouring from his mouth.
The next strike came.
He caught it—
But his spine cracked.
Another from the side.
His ribs shattered.
He rose again.
The crowd of enemies faltered.
Because they saw something in his eyes they couldn't destroy.
"Guy-sensei…"
He whispered.
"Thank you…"
His vision blurred.
"For loving me… like a son."
And then—
The spear struck.
Right through his gut.
Another pierced his shoulder.
A final one—
Right through the center of his chest.
The screen showed it all.
Guy screamed.
"LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—!"
Tenten dropped to the ground, hands over her mouth.
Neji turned away.
Lee dropped to his knees.
Then—
He was split in half.
Down the center.
A clean cut.
The Fates raised their shears.
And the system whispered:
[Status: Rock Lee – Deceased]
[Thread Severance Imminent.]
But then—
The system paused.
The blade hovered.
The thread flickered.
[But it refused.]
The world shuddered.
Lee's body—
Melted.
Like a silhouette made of memory.
Like a man held together by something no one could define.
He stood.
Back straight.
Half-gone.
But burning.
And then—
He began to fall again.
His arms trembled.
His legs dissolved.
His feet stopped touching the ground.
Like the world remembered its rule:
"You're dead. Stay dead."
The thread began to unravel again.
The Fates reached for the shears.
But Lee grit his teeth.
His eyes glowed.
Not with chakra.
Not with divinity.
But with something older.
A concept the system could quantify—
But not control.
[Warning: Anchor Integrity Failing]
[Body: Dissolving]
[Consciousness: Fragmenting]
[Willpower Level: ERROR.]
And then—
His hand clenched.
There was no flesh.
Just glowing outline.
But it clenched.
The world blinked.
[He is no longer connected to a living body.]
[Yet he remembers what it means to fight.]
His ribs reassembled.
His spine realigned, segment by segment.
His torn flesh crawled inward like rivers of light stitching across an empty frame.
His soul had no container—
So it made one.
And then—
His heart pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Then louder.
Until the entire battlefield heard it:
thump
THUMP
THUMP.
The Fates hesitated.
The youngest turned to the eldest.
"He doesn't want to go."
The middle replied:
"He is gone."
The eldest looked down—
And said nothing.
Lee's mouth opened.
A whisper—burnt into time.
"Not yet."
He forced his body back together again.
Not healed.
Not whole.
But enough.
Enough to move.
Enough to fight.
A message flickered.
Just once.
[Determination Exceeds System Parameters]
And then again.
[Thread Reinforced]
[DO NOT FORGET.]
His hands lifted.
Flames flickered from his skin—green and gold and something that didn't belong to this reality.
He stood.
Fully.
Not because he was alive.
But because he chose to be.
"This is what youth means."
"To keep going even when the world says stop."
"To rebuild yourself from the ashes of your own failure."
"To burn so brightly the gods have to look away."
The Fates closed their eyes.
Because none of them could cut the thread.
Because he refused to die without leaving his mark.
Author's Note
Hey everyone—
This was one of the hardest chapters I've ever written.
Rock Lee has always meant something deep to me. A boy with no gifts, no power, no special blood—who just never stopped moving forward. In a story filled with reincarnations and divine sponsors, Lee remains a human being who survives by sheer effort. That mattered. That still matters.
I wanted this to feel like his moment—like he was burning so brightly the story itself couldn't erase him. That even gods would flinch at the sheer Determination in his soul.
This arc is heavy. And I know the emotional weight is only going up from here. But just like Lee, I'm not gonna let up.
Thanks for reading all of this. Seriously.
– Nikumura