Chapter Text
Ghost of an uncertain future:
The end is nigh.
The cycle of shinobi has reached its end.
The realms are fracturing, the paths to the nadir are yawning open, another dead civilization, another dead world.
The weapon of destruction obscures the sky, shadowing the decayed earth below, a behemoth on the horizon.
A mockery of what once flourished in its surroundings, the god tree.
And from its shadow, she appears.
She looks up and smiles grimly. The limbs sway, branches ominously creak, the cocooned corpses of her comrades swing to and fro in the wind, harkening the end days.
She studies this mass grave for a moment, gives a decisive nod, and then treks back into the tree's shadow.
The world is a beast of a burden, but it's a weight that Naruto has carried all her life without regret.
And yet, more than anything at this moment, she feels weary and hammered down.
This is the last resort.
The end is nigh; the world she once carried now has the lingering stench of decay, ash falls freely in a mockery of light rain, and the earth cracks with a thirst for sun and water. The only sound is the howling wind as she steps on this dry earth, steadily making her way to what once represented the pinnacle of shinobi civilization. There are not even ruins to allude to once stood here, what it represented, the will of the people who built it, nor those who inhabited it and carried on the will of fire.
But there yonder.
Yonder is the rocky precipice, the mountain that proudly boasted the faces of the fire shadows that led the Village Hidden in The Leaves. Now beyond there lies nothing; the mountain is gone, gone, gone.
Naruto comes to stand before it and then looks around her.
Uchiha Madara has finally made the world in his image.
And Naruto will undo all his hard work.
She queries the leviathan that lurks in the ether of her mind. 'Kurama, will this work?'
Kurama ruminates on giving her the response he's given her every time she voices this question. To Kurama, it matters not; he was there at the beginning, and he will be there at the end. He is primordial, eternal, and at the root of his being that has grown apathetic with the passage of time, but something stirs, for Naruto is different. In every cycle of humanity, he meets an extraordinary human, but Naruto's shadow encompasses them all.
̛̘̦̫͇͓͖̥̒̅ͩͅ"ͯ̿ͧ̐҉̩̼Y̨͚͍̞͚͒e͊ͧͬ͏̗͇͉̰͓̞s̻͚̼ͭ̈́̆͘.̠̥̤̭̻͇͕̞̯̹͔̍͂̊̄ͭͩ͢͝"̝͇̿̀
The voice echoes, carrying with it the impression of infernal engines, of a song that humanity must never hear. Naruto inhales sharply even as her ears begin to bleed. She wipes the ichor away easily, and the wily fox grins with a thousand teeth at her reaction. She'd been bracing herself for a negative response, but this will work; Kurama will make it so. The rules that once tethered him to this cycle, marking him as a puppet of fate, have been ripped asunder. As a fail-safe, he will use those seldom used powers that would drive humanity to insanity, should her seal not succeed.
Just a touch, and perhaps Naruto will come away from this unscathed. She has already been exposed to the nadir more than any human has the right, and the taint from the dark below appears in the manic gleam in her eyes, spelling some form of madness.
Naruto nods and straightens; she bites her thumb and runs the bloodied appendage down her arm. Ink appears in intricate matrices, arcane symbols of languages of long-dead civilizations dance across her skin before coalescing at her feet and spreading into a seal. Naruto proceeds to draw on chakra that would require a platoon of jonin, and with it comes Kurama's ancient essence, triggering the seal.
There's a pulse; it rapidly increases in pitch and ripples as the plane of existence writhes in resistance as a rip in the very fabric of the space-time continuum yawns open. From the opening, shadows spill forth in glittering clouds of dust and a viscous liquid where creatures take shape from it, sprouting appendages and beady red eyes that watch her with apathy.
Naruto sidesteps these skittering beasts, heading for the gateway, and does not hesitate to step through.
The end is nigh, but Naruto shall save them all.