Chapter Text
The night was as dark as pitch, the only light coming from a blood-red moon that hung large and heavy in the sky like an overripe cherry. It shone down on the battered landscape, bathing the sea of corpses in a sickly crimson glow. Naruto clenched his fists tightly, nails digging into calloused flesh. So many had died. Too many. Neji, Shikaku-o-san, Inoichi-o-san, and countless others...All of them were dead because of the whims of a madman.
Madara himself stood on a high crest; his form silhouetted by the moon. Naruto wasn’t able to make out his expression, but it wasn’t difficult to picture his arrogant smirk of satisfaction as he surveyed the destruction his hands had wrought.
Madara! His heart screamed in wordless fury. I’ll kill you!
“Pay attention, idiot!” Sasuke’s voice broke into his reverie. “Your opponent is me!”
His former teammate sprang towards him, his entire body enveloped in the potent purple chakra of the Susanoo. In the giant’s hands was a massive sword, poised for attack.
Kurama, he thought tiredly. A little help here...
In answer, the gold chakra of the Nine-Tails cloak rippled around his body.
You need to end this quickly. Kurama’s deep voice rumbled inside his mind. Your reserves are almost gone, and we still have to deal with Madara.
I know that, dattebayo, he muttered.
Kurama’s chakra stretched into two long arms, meeting the sword and stopping it in the middle of its deadly arc. The ground shook from the impact and Naruto staggered drunkenly, fighting to stay on his feet.
“Sasuke, enough of this!” he cried.
“Shut up!” Sasuke said through gritted teeth.
“Now isn’t the time for us to be fighting, dattebayo!” he tried again. “Itachi would’ve wanted you to help fight to protect Konoha!”
“You don’t have any right to talk about what Itachi would have wanted,” Sasuke spat viciously. “Konoha didn’t deserve his devotion! The entire village is nothing but a rotted tree—good for nothing but being cut down and burned. If this war kills every person in Konoha, that would be fine with me.”
“So you’re on his side then?” He jerked his thumb toward Madara in disgust. “You’ll team up with the one who caused the massacre in the first place?”
“I’m not teaming up with him. He’s next once I take care of you.”
The Susanoo faded away and at nearly the same moment Naruto’s cloak also flickered and disappeared. It appeared that he wasn’t the only one who was nearly out of chakra.
“This is the end, Naruto!” Lightning chakra coated Sasuke’s hand, emitting the familiar high-pitched chirping of a thousand birds.
“Sasuke!” He mustered the last of his reserves—a feeling akin to scraping the bottom of an empty barrel—and was rewarded when the Rasengan flickered to life in his palm.
The two attacks—wind and lightning—collided in a shockwave of hair-raising energy. By the time the dust had settled, both he and Sasuke were lying flat on the ground, utterly drained and unable to lift more than a finger.
Suddenly a blinding blue light flooded the sky and blocked out everything else, even the taunting red moon. Once his eyes adjusted, he saw that the light had the form of a colossal armored giant—Madara’s Susanoo. He struggled frantically to move, but it was futile. He could do nothing but watch as the giant raised its blade over them.
“You young ones may be strong, but you are too naïve,” Madara said scornfully. “In my era, the victorious shinobi waited until their enemies were weakened to strike. You would do well to take this lesson with you to the afterlife.”
The light grew stronger, encompassing him and burning his eyes with its overpowering radiance. The last thing he heard was maniacal laughter before everything faded into nothingness.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Drip...Drip...Drip...
Naruto’s eyes flew open and he looked around in confusion. The battlefield was gone, replaced by a strange cavernous space. He called it a space because he had no way to tell if he was inside or outside. There were no walls or ceiling that he could see, but the floor was covered in clear liquid that glowed with a goldish tint. It looked like water, yet it wasn’t wet—his clothes didn’t have a single damp spot on them.
What the heck was this place...?
“You are in a realm of my creation.”
He whirled and found himself face-to-face with a man unlike any he had ever seen before. His skin had a grayish hue, and two horns sprouted from his forehead. He wore a white robe and in his right hand was a monk’s staff made of smooth, dark metal. But what struck him the most was the man’s eyes. Purple with rings—the Rinnegan.
“Who are you?” he asked warily.
“My name is Hagoromo Otsutsuki,” the man replied, “but I am also known as the Sage of Six Paths.”
Naruto gaped at him. “The creator of ninjutsu? What are you doing here? What am I doing here? The attack...I thought...”
He checked his body for injuries but found none. “Am I...dead?”
“You are currently in a stasis between life and death. I have contained your soul in this realm to prevent you from traveling to the Pure World, but your body is already no more.”
He leapt to his feet in agitation. “What about Sasuke? Is he alright?”
The man looked surprised for a moment, then his expression softened. “You really are very much like him.”
“What happened to Sasuke, senin-jii-chan? You know, don’t you?”
The old man eyed him sadly. “You already know the answer to that question, don’t you?”
Naruto opened his mouth to ask again, but he stopped himself once he realized that the old man was right. There was no way Sasuke could have survived that attack—not in the state he was in. He sat down, defeated.
“It would not have mattered, even if he had lived,” Hagoromo said. “With either of you lost, the world is doomed.”
Naruto looked up abruptly. “What do you mean?”
“There is a prophecy. You have perhaps heard of the Child of Prophecy, but there is another—a brother prophecy that speaks of two who will hold the fate of the world in their hands—either its salvation or its destruction. They are the Children of Prophecy, the reincarnations of my two sons, Ashura and Indra.”
He hit his staff against the water, creating ripples that spread into an ever-widening circle. Naruto watched in amazement as the water beneath his feet took on a reflection of a young man with warm brown eyes and a grinning expression.
“Who...?”
“That is my younger son, Ashura. His chakra clings to you, as does his spirit.” The image disappeared as suddenly as it had come. “My other son, Indra, has also been reborn into this world.”
“It’s Sasuke...isn’t it?” It was a gut feeling more than anything, but he knew that he was right. He didn’t know how, but he did.
Hagoromo nodded tiredly. “It doesn’t surprise me that you could sense it. You two are brothers—if not in blood, then in spirit.”
“And you say that...that Sasuke and I were supposed to save the world?”
“So it was prophesied, but that is impossible now. With you two gone, no one will be able to stop Madara from destroying the world.”
Sakura’s smiling face appeared in his mind. He had failed her—he had failed all of them. Everyone was going to die, and it was all his fault.
“No! There has to be some way to fix it!” he cried desperately. “Can’t you do something with your sage powers? Anything?”
The old man smiled. “You really do remind me of Ashura. There is one way, but it is dangerous and there is no guarantee that it will work.”
“Just tell me what it is, and I’ll do it! I’ll do anything, senin-jii-chan!”
“Very well. My proposal is this: I will send you back in time to a date where you will be able to shape events so that you and Sasuke will fight together rather than against each other. Only then will the prophecy be fulfilled, and the world be saved.”
He gaped at the old man. “You can really do that? Send me back in time?”
Hagoromo’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “Indeed. I am the Sage of Six Paths, after all.”
“I’ll do it!” he cried eagerly. “This time I’ll definitely get that stubborn jerk to listen to me, dattebayo!”
“Very well, but you must understand that you only have one chance. If you fail, there will be no more going back.”
“I understand,” he said solemnly.
“Good.” Hagoromo held out his staff towards him. “Now grab on.”
Naruto obediently grasped the handle of the staff. The metal began to vibrate at his touch.
“Oh, and there’s one more thing you should know,” Hagoromo said as the vibration intensified to a loud hum. “I will be sending your spirit back to a time before you were born, so you will be in a different body—another reincarnation of Ashura. Best of luck. The fate of the world is in your hands.”
Naruto’s eyes widened. “Another...? Wait, what—?”
But at that moment the old man and the strange space were swallowed by a powerful burst of light, and everything slipped into nothingness once more.