Chapter Text
Uzumaki Naruto has always known he’s weird from the moment he can see. There’s a tall man in black and white watching over him, scolding his neglectful and cold caretaker whenever the neglect left Naruto hungry for sustenance or cold for warmth.
They never look at the man or listen to him. It took a long time staring on Naruto’s part to realise that they can’t hear the man or even touch the man. Whenever Naruto’s tummy hurt, the man will reach over and brush his hand on Naruto’s tummy. He felt better then but the man grew sadder.
Naruto ‘learned’ how to walk when he was two years old and only because he’s desperate to get clean. They ‘liked’ to forget to change his diapers. They avoided him more now that he no longer needed help with the toilet. The matron also locked him in his room and often ‘forgets’ to send food. Since he can’t say anything, he can’t tell on them to that nice Jiji with the hat who sometimes visited that he’s always hungry and cold. Even if they locked him a ‘nice’ room, it was all just for show. They took away his toy and blanket when Jiji left for work.
When the man finally realised that Naruto can see and hear him that was when Naruto learned how to communicate. The first time he asked for a blanket he was three and the matron looked at him in horror before throwing him into the bitter cold of autumn with only the clothes on his back.
“Since you can talk, you can defend yourself!”
That really makes no sense but Naruto’s scared out of his wits. He shivered and cried quietly as he walked and walked. At first the people around didn’t look at him twice but someone shouted fox and the next thing he knew, he was running in pure terror for his own life. They called him mean names and threw things at him.
His friend, Ashura, lead him away from the town and into the forest.
Rain started falling and Naruto stumble through the dark. Ashura glowed like a lamp as he glided soundlessly through the forest, leading Naruto somewhere that only he knows. After what seemed like forever, after the shouting voice full of disgust and fear hidden under hatred fade away, Naruto found himself at a dilapidated temple.
Ashura looked inside, “I can feel familiar chakra coming from inside. It’s only a residue though but it should welcome you,”
Naruto didn’t speak, too traumatized by his first experience to say anything. Ashura sighed at the foolishness of it all. The boy had been so shy it took him months perfecting what he was going to ask the matron only to have all that effort thrown to his face because she couldn’t look beyond her hatred. It was disheartening for anyone let alone a child of Naruto’s age.
What has become of this world? All around him he only sees his Grandmother’s legacy growing ever stronger; a legacy of power, hatred and greed.
They hid in the rundown building for the rain to pass. Meanwhile, his eyes adjusted and Naruto saw masks hanging from the wall. Ashura looked around with great interest. These things didn’t exist when he’s from. He knew he transmigrated several times but he was never conscious each time, except for this time. Perhaps because Naruto has Otsutsuki chakra revived inside him.
When Ashura came around, finally fully awake for this time’s transmigrate, he immediately noticed three things about his new host. For one he carries the blood of two of his descendants, once separated by disagreement now united. For another, he’s the latest vessel for his non-human sibling unwillingly chosen because of his inherited chakra. And finally, Ashura can feel his own chakra growing like a sapling within the boy. These three combined was the only reason that not only the will of his chakra attached itself to the boy but also awakened his spirit.
These three factors slowly evolved the boy’s chakra into that of an Otsutsuki.
The boy will soon become his incarnation reborn.
Already, Naruto’s slowly recalling forgotten memories of an ancient childhood. With each recollection, Ashura will slowly disappear from the world and become Naruto. But he’s not afraid, perhaps with this he can pass down a different will and not just rescuing his brother Indra from their Grandmother’s legacy.
It took his awhile to notice Naruto picking one mask that he felt off about, too immersed in his thoughts. Ashura shouted, “Naruto!”
The mask glowed from forcefully pulling chakra from the boy and Ashura dove after him. No matter the quality of the mask, no ordinary creation barring one by his father Otsutsuki Hagoromo can handle the dense chakra of an Otsutsuki, even one that call upon the Shinigami.
Ashura find himself suddenly wandering the vast expanse of a desert. He fretted, worrying about Naruto as he sought out for a way back to the child. That lonely child who had just been thrown out of the only shelter he knew, that lonely child who didn’t understand why he’s so hated and feared. As Ashura wandered and wandered, he felt a familiar energy.
Tears blooming from his eyes, he sought out that powerful energy that was trapped within his younger incarnation. It wasn’t hard to find the slumbering other half of the Kyuubi and Ashura couldn’t stop the call of longing and relief, “Kurama!!”
The fox’s ears twitched, looked to the side when Ashura saw a man who looked like a grownup Naruto yet not. The two then looked at him as he shot forward and buried himself by the giant’s side, “Kurama!”
Kurama blinked in confusion, “Ashura? How? Why are you here?”
Ashura stilled, “I need to go back! Naruto-!”
A hand clamped on his shoulder and Ashura turned to see the older blond looking at him with frantic eyes full of hope and fear, “Did you just say Naruto?”
Kurama rolled his eyes, “Stop shaking my Nii-san, Yondaime,”
Upon hearing the name, fury flashed within Ashura’s dark eyes and he grabbed the other man’s shirt, “YOU!!” He shook the man in turn, “Do you have any idea what you have condemned us to?!”
The fear grew stronger as well as disappointment and regret, “I have no choice. It was damned or be damned. A life of pain with a chance of happiness or no life at all, that was the choice I was left with!” The Yondaime then grabbed the wrist holding onto his front, “And who are you to my son?! Why are you here, within the belly of the Shinigami?!” He then frowned, “And what do you mean by ‘us’?”
Kurama decided to pull them apart, “Yes, Aniki, what do you mean by ‘us’?”
Ashura sighed, “Naruto’s to be my new transmigrate,”
Kurama frowned, “And the cycle of hatred continues. Nothing good ever come out of this world ever since the two of you fight for something as foolish as a title,”
Ashura looked to side, shame peppering his cheeks red, “You know I tried to turn him from that path, Kurama,”
Kurama growled, “You’re too soft! He’s not your brother the moment he became a vessel for that woman’s legacy!”
Before thing gets any more heated, the Yondaime stepped forward, “Kurama-san, I need explanation. Actual explanation, not an argument. This is my son we are talking about. As much as I have failed him in so many ways, I do still worry for him,”
Ashura can hear the Fourth’s painful longing. He looked at the blond, studying him and reached out with his chakra only to be flooded by love and pain in equal measure. He blinked back tears, “You love him,”
The blond growled, “I may be a bastard of a father for what I did to him, but never question my love for him,”
Ashura sighed, “Forgive me…it’s just that…all his life that I’ve been aware, there’s only hatred and neglect,” The blond looked like he just punched the man with Susanoo with full strength, “Had it not been for the Kurama within, he won’t have survived,”
The blond fell to his knees in horror at the revelation, muttering apologies and blubbering self-hate in equal amount as he cried for the child he had to abandon. He then began to question the faith he once had in his village before grabbing some sands and threw it, screaming wordlessly to the sky.
They let him let it out.
Once calmed he whispered, “Why? How did they know? I know I asked Hiruzen to have him seen as a Hero but a Jinchuuriki status should only be known to a select few,” He hissed, “Something’s amiss and I’m not there!”
Ashura shook his head, “I need to get back. The orphanage recently threw him out just for asking for a blanket-,” He stuttered as an unknown energy blanketed the whole area. Kurama looked at the blond, “So…Namikaze Minato, you have decided?”
Minato glared at the starless sky with a single sickle moon, “I thought I was doing him right. I thought I must honour my contract with the Shinigami but…he’s not the only one now, is he?”
Ashura turned to see a ghastly figure with the face of the mask that Naruto touched appeared. The knife clenched between fangs slid out and Ashura watched as Minato pulled a katana that he had worn at his hip to face the apparition. At Ashura’s questioning look, Kurama explained, “There was a world before Father…and before Her…”
A world divided in four layers; the Living, the Spirit, the Limbo and Hell. A world that reset itself because of a war between all three. A world that destroyed all that once was and reborn from the ashes of its predecessor into something new. Something that Otsutsuki Kaguya became familiar with and fell in love with. A world that once again evolved with a foreign energy known as chakra, an energy that shouldn’t have existed in this world.
A world guided by Otsutsuki Hagoromo and Otsutsuki Hamura into a new age. An age that Ashura and Indra was born into…
The two Shinigami clashed, because in the nothingness and ruins of a civilization forgotten, the two ‘prisoners’ had investigated their surrounding after coming to an understanding. In his boredom, curiosity and innate desire to see his son again, Minato had experimented and studied the lost art of the Spirit world. He trained and trained and didn’t demand a duel with the Shinigami only because of his sense of honour to their contract.
But Naruto need his father. Even dead, Minato loves his son…
Ashura observed the battle atop of Kurama’s furry head, a position the fox once had with his brother. It was devastating, more devastating than ones battled between him and Indra. But soon, Minato came out the victor as he sliced the Shinigami’s belly open.
He looked at the other two, “Time to go home. My son needs me…”