Chapter Text
The day was cloudy and utterly desolate. In the center of the ruins of what once was a thriving village filled with peace and happiness stood a blond man with the most gaunt and terrifying appearance one could witness: he was bloodied from head to toe, with various scars running from his stomach to his face (each one more grotesque than the last) and one of his eyes protruding from its socket, barely being held in place by a nerve.
This man had lived through too many harrowing experiences that would have driven anyone insane. But he always remained steadfast in his determination, hopeful that one day the war would end.
And finally, it did.
But it wasn't how he imagined it... because they lost.
Everyone, absolutely everyone he knew died in battle. No matter how hard he tried to keep them safe. It was never enough.
The ninja, filled with impotence, looked down only to come face to face again with the pale face of his once wife: Hinata Hyūga. Rage and remorse swirled within him, crushing his heart completely.
Unable to stop it, he began to cry until his throat closed up. His hands, full of cuts and calluses, violently pounded the ground. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," he repeated in a low voice while crying with the one eye that was still intact. "I... I could have done more. I could have... saved them," he stammered between choked sobs.
His other eye, the one hanging at the level of his mouth, swayed from side to side until the nerve snapped and the viscous organ fell to the ground with a repugnant sound. The man paid it no mind, not even flinching in pain.
What was left of his vision began to blur with black dots, and he knew what was happening. He collapsed right beside the lifeless body of his beloved, feeling death calling out to him, he did his best to grasp Hinata's cold hand and not let go because he was afraid of dying.
Afraid of the darkness.
"I-I'm sorry..."
___________
It was cold. Very cold.
A chilling voice appeared in the darkness, causing the blond man's skin to crawl.
"Now that your hope is shattered, you must accept that you are a failure of a ninja, Naruto Uzumaki."
The newly named knew instantly whose voice it was, and he couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by a wave of panic and fury. He whipped his head from side to side, but he saw nothing. Everything was pitch black.
“You couldn't even save your friends; what makes you think you will defeat me? I am the goddess Kaguya, and you are but a miserable human.” This time, it was a woman’s voice whispering directly into his ear.
Naruto understood that those were just vile memories.
"Naruto... protect them..."
He knew, with a churning stomach, that those had been Sasuke’s final words. For several long minutes, he could hear nothing but the voices of his friends saying their goodbyes and the voices of his enemies looking down on him with contempt.
Maybe all of this was a punishment for all the deaths he didn't prevent and the ones he caused himself. A part of him, to his shame, found it comforting that those voices were at least accompanying him during what he thought was purgatory.
Naruto couldn't help but repeat in his mind that if he had tried a little harder, everything that happened wouldn't have ended in such a cruel outcome. He was just a foolish teenager who thought he could defeat anyone who stood in his way when the war broke out. The worst part? Most trusted that he would save them and that led him to make mistake after mistake.
Helplessly, he had to witness the deaths of his friends. Of his family. And there were times when he wasn't even there to hold his comrades' hands when they were on the brink of death.
His thoughts came to a sudden halt (as did the voices) the moment Naruto felt a strange sensation engulfing him. It was as if all the warmth returned to him at once. The sound of chirping birds left him in awe.
Where was he? Wasn't he dead?
Both eyelids separated to reveal a frightened blue gaze. Naruto ran a hand near his left eye with a look of brutal bewilderment. "My eye... I have my eye." With a trembling hand, he touched his eyelid again. The curvature didn't lie, he really had an eye again!
Still not taking his hand off his face, he sat up and immediately was greeted by a strong dizziness as he looked around the place where he was.
"It can't be... It can't be."
The pounding of his heart almost deafened him, it was pounding so hard in his ears.
He was in his apartment.
And not only that, as more time passed there, his sensory ability detected hundreds of chakras moving in different directions.
"What is this place? Why are there so many people?"
He tried to lean on something but all he found was air, and seconds later he fell heavily against the hard wooden floor. His eyes recognized the bed from where he had fallen, and his breath became uneven. The resemblance of this place to his old apartment and the presence of so many people was suffocating him.
He grabbed his head with both hands trying to block out the sounds coming from outside.
"It's a lie, it's a lie, it's a lie."
He pulled on his hair and closed his eyes tightly.
"ENOUGH!" he shouted with panic-filled voice. He had to calm down. He couldn't lose control. What if this was a trap? What if Madara created this illusion to make him suffer?
He couldn't let his guard down, that was unbecoming of a ninja. Kakashi had told him so and that's why...
"Naruto!"
The blond opened his eyes. He could finally breathe. "Kurama?" he asked with a thin voice.
"Relax, Naruto, I'm here. I won't leave you." The tone of voice of the "Great Demon Fox" was quite gentle. "I want you to pay attention to what I'm telling you, okay? What's your name?"
Relief washed over him because at least his only remaining friend was with him. He wasn't alone. "U-Uzumaki Naruto."
"Perfect, you're doing fine. What do you like to do?"
Naruto squeezed his chest with both hands, where his heart was pounding strongly against his rib cage. "I like... I like to... read?"
"And what do you like to read?"
"The novel of... of my godfather," he said and let out a sigh. It was working.
"Tell me a phrase you like."
He let his thoughts wander through the many paragraphs of the book "The Story of a Bold Shinobi" that he had reread hundreds of times during the few moments of free time he had during the war. A small phrase came to mind quickly, as if he knew he was urgently looking for it among the dense fog of his thoughts.
He took a breath before speaking. "I follow a path, without hurry, without running, knowing that my... my destiny is to be myself... before my conscience and my law."
"That was excellent, brat." Although Kurama sounded very intimidating with his deep voice, he managed to convey his unconditional support perfectly. "Everything will be fine, understand? There's nothing you can't overcome, so stay calm. You're better than this."
Naruto nodded silently. He placed his hands on the wooden planks and forced himself to sit up despite the fact that his body protested. He sat there for a while, staring into space, as he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and tried to figure out what kind of place he was in.
"I died, didn't I?" he broke the silence. His throat was dry.
"Yes..." It was as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over Naruto. "Listen, honestly, I don't know what's happening. We shouldn't be here. You..."
"Could it be one of those damn genjutsu from Madara?" he asked, resisting the urge to clench his fists at the mention of the Uchiha.
"I don't think so, I already checked."
Naruto lowered his head and held it in his hands. "It's not possible, there's no other option, Kurama. It must be that damn son of a bitch and Kaguya."
"Believe what you want, but I'm pretty sure we're not in any kind of illusion. The best thing you could do right now is gather information."
Naruto agreed with that and immediately stood up cautiously (still dizzy after the fall, but stable enough to stand).
For a moment, he contemplated the peeling paint on the walls.
Then he looked away to focus on walking to the window without tripping over the food scraps and dirty clothes strewn about. The window was somewhat stuck when he tried to open it, but with a little force, he managed to do it and leaned halfway out without fear of falling.
There was a crowd of people going about their business below, unaware of the bewildered gaze he was sending from the top of his apartment.
"But what the hell?" he exclaimed under his breath and impulsively jumped onto the railing in front. He swayed dangerously when he almost lost his balance. He looked down at his bare feet in confusion, not noticing how small they were because of the anxiety he was feeling. "My weight isn't the same... Something strange happened to me."
The wind brushed against his face and he shivered. He observed a roof to his left and decided to jump there because it looked safer.
His feet landed on the old wood and he stood still again. He didn't move as smoothly as he should. It was like being in someone else's body and not being able to fully control it. He took a few steps forward and reached the edge of the roof. Below him were a bunch of people he didn't recognize at all, although the street looked familiar to him because of the tremendous resemblance it had to the neighborhood where he grew up.
But Konoha was destroyed and this had to be a replica. A very exact one, but in the end a replica.
"What are you doing there?! You better not be planning anything, demon!"
Naruto froze at that shout. His eyes instantly located the person who had said that: it was a man with little hair and the appearance of a sweaty pig. The man's small eyes watched him with hatred, as if he wanted to make him disappear.
The blond felt as if his soul had left him. "That look... It's like when everyone...," he silenced his thoughts and remained pale on that roof.
"Get down right now, de...!" The villager's expression turned to a frightened one after Naruto's eyes took on a slight reddish gleam. "...mon," he choked on his words.
The blond ninja regained his composure and his gaze returned to a blue hue. He took a deep breath and quickly escaped from there with the help of the rooftops. His legs were shaking like jelly the more he ran and tried to ignore the murmurs of all those crowds.
He stopped in the middle of a fairly tall building and analyzed all the constructions he could see from his position. This place was like the old Konoha, Naruto thought with a heavy feeling in his chest since everything was difficult for him to digest. In the distance, a large mountain with four faces carved into the stone loomed over the village's foundations.
"God... How is this possible?" He wanted to say something out loud, but he couldn't and had to settle for a sob.
Tears overflowed from his eyes, and suddenly, he was saying incoherent things with his voice choked with tears. The sounds coming out of his mouth were so loud that soon the passersby wondered where those pitiful noises were coming from, but no matter how much they looked around, they didn't find the person who was suffering at the top of his lungs.
Naruto rubbed his face trying to end his panic attack, although he wasn't very successful.
"I have to calm down. I gain nothing by crying," he thought as he hid his face in his forearm. "I shouldn't act like this, I'm a ninja, damn it." He stopped covering his face to look ahead with a tense expression as he resisted the urge to break down in tears again.
He looked back at the mountain, more specifically the carved face of his father, Minato Namikaze. A few months after the war started, the Hokage monument was completely destroyed after Kaguya decided to send a devastating jutsu in that direction just to lower the morale of the Hidden Leaf Village ninjas. And she did, because more than a third of the shinobis left their hometown with the hope of not being killed in the long run.
The blond began to run towards the monument before his feet could object (they were already quite battered after Naruto's journey across poorly maintained and splinter-filled roofs). He climbed the stairs with severe fatigue, but even so, he managed to reach the top.
He knelt on the floor and stabilized himself with his hands. Sweat dripped down to his chin and fell in the form of small droplets on the blue pants he was wearing, while he tried to calm his breath.
The pain in his abdomen indicated that he had pushed himself too hard, and with his left hand, he squeezed that part. He also felt his chest sore and could only curse halfway.
He raised his head and finally took note of how small the houses and any establishment looked from where he was. It couldn't be real; he refused to believe it. He made the ram hand sign and muttered quietly:
"Kai."
Nothing around him changed.
He grimaced and tried again.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five times and nothing happened!
He bit the inside of his right cheek to contain the anger he felt inside.
"Try with pain, if it's a genjutsu maybe it will work." Kurama spoke suddenly, and Naruto was startled a bit.
He contemplated the idea for a few seconds, debating what could make it truly painful, and finally found a simple way. He took three fingers from his left hand and bent them backward with all his strength.
He bit his lower lip and continued to see his broken fingers.
Had it hurt? Yes.
Had it worked? No.
He tried with something more painful: he broke his wrist. And yet, it didn't work. Now he had practically rendered his left hand useless for nothing.
He threw his head back and breathed, slow and deep. He didn't fully register the pain even though it bothered him deep down because he was already used to it.
What was he supposed to do now?
"Do you see? It's not a genjutsu." Kurama spoke again, and this time he sounded very tired. "Everything is real, and that makes me think that... we're in the past."
Naruto frowned. "Time travel? No ninja has done it, Kurama. It's impossible."
"And yet, here we are in this situation," he reminded him harshly. "Think about it carefully, Naruto, the Second Hokage managed to create a space-time jutsu, and your father improved it further. Time travel isn't crazy."
”Remember, I was dying! Do you understand? Dying,” he shouted at him as his eyes flashed red again. “I might not have been able to pull that off.”
"But someone else did, idiot. Just stop and think for a damn second."
"Then enlighten me! Who could it have been?"
Kurama clicked his tongue, annoyed. "I don't know..."
"There you go! I'm telling you, we're screwed in this," he growled bitterly.
Naruto gave up. He, Uzumaki Naruto, had given up for the first time in his life, and there were no words to express the helplessness and disappointment he felt. He swore he would never go back on his word, but there he was, lamenting like a little child.
He clenched his fists.
The day fell before his eyes, and Naruto couldn't calculate how long he had simply sat there staring into space. The cold seeped into his bones, and he tried to hug himself, although that greatly hurt him because of his broken hand. He hissed and carefully moved his hand away to avoid further injury.
He stood up with numb feet, and for the last time, he glanced at the great village that was now quiet and peaceful, the opposite of what he experienced in the war. With his functional hand, he palpated and put pressure on his broken fingers to once again feel the burning sting that it caused him and confirm once again that everything he saw below was real.
His eyelids were already beginning to feel very heavy, as if they were made of lead. Exhausted fell short to describe his current state.
"Let it be a dream," he pleaded weakly. "Please... a dream."