Chapter Text
Naruto startles with alarm because it's too quiet and where's the explosionsdisasterscreams and death-
The sky is still hazy with smoke and the air is still pungent with the ever present smell of blood and rotting corpses-
"Kurama," Naruto hisses because for some reason that stinking fox won't let him in. His eyes dart around, observing his surroundings with the cool of a war-hardened shinobi.
He sees barren land devoid of the corpses and the abhorrent humanoid Zetsus. He releases a burst of chakra and can feel Sasuke's chakra responding from around him.
Sasuke's dimension? Relaxing his limbs, Naruto stretches, adrenaline fading, leaving him with bone-deep exhaustion. Days of surviving on soldier pills had done nothing but harm for anyone. Even a chakra tank like Naruto.
Wait. Why had he even slept in the first place? How long has Sasuke been fighting Kaguya for? Is he injured?
"Oi, Kurama!" Naruto hisses louder this time because Sasuke can't be hurt, right? If he was, then they were fighting a losing war, never mind his Nindo (Naruto can't deny the world ending; can't talk a goddess into repenting). When he doesn't answer, his heart stops and he can feel himself go pale because where is his fucking hissy furball-
"Naruto," Sasuke appears and immediately grips his shoulder.
"Oh Sasuke, thank god," Naruto gasps, relief crashing down on him so heavily that he nearly stumbled. He scrubbed a hand through his scalp of yellow hair- if it even is yellow, with the amount of dirt it'd experienced. "Kurama- Kurama isn't answering me and- Sasuke, what are you doing?"
He was expelling chakra into the ground and what even...
"Doton Jutsu in your own dimension, Sasuke? What are you doing, we have a mad chakra goddess to fight!" Then after a beat of the ground shifting, "Don't tell me Kaguya found a way into here."
Because if she did then they're screwed. Sasuke could only transport small groups of people into this dimension, so- ...Wait.
Wait.
"Who's watching the survivors?" Naruto asks, terror thrumming through his body.
"No one."
There's one beat of silence.
One beat where Naruto processes it and panic grips him so hard, his vision fails him for a moment.
"What the fuck, Sasuke," Naruto growls, anger coiling in his gut even though he knows Sasuke cares as much as Naruto does.
"No, I meant," Sasuke cuts in and looks at Naruto, and that was when he finally notices the smeared tear streaks running down Sasuke's cheeks.
His eyes avert, then return to his.
"There's no one left to watch."
His heart stopped.
His chest dropped.
"No one."
What.
Sasuke drew his chokuto while Naruto was frozen and slashes his own arm, blood pouring onto the large seal that covered the floor. He didn't even react, all too familiar with pain at this point.
"They- They told me to bring you back," Sasuke says, voice wavering, "They volunteered to buy time. Naruto, they believe you; we believe you."
And damnit Sasuke wasn't good with words like Naruto was so he wishes he could do more. He looks deeply into Naruto's sky blue eyes that are clouded with confusion and frustration and wisheshopes and crosseshisdarnfingers that he will be safe.
"Back?" Naruto repeats and doesn't acknowledge how his voice breaks (because he refuses to believe that there's no one).
The chakra seals jump up and wound around Naruto, slowly curling throughout his body and he recognises these seals, and no way it's completed-
"Can't deny the Uzumaki blood," Sasuke smirks, grief colouring his face. And oh, Karin.
He can feel the seals being absorbed onto his skin and- "Sasuke, these seals are meant to be powered by the Gokage... at least five Kage level chakra capacity worth- You have nothing left- You'll drain yourself!"
Naruto's voice steadily rises in volume because they've been fighting nonstop for weeks.
"You'll die!"
He yanks away from Sasuke, carefully, because the bastard is wounded, and tries to undo this admittedly well done, fully completed time travel seal. What the fuck- There was no way for Karin to know how this seal works, which means even with her limited help, Sasuke, who had no real teaching on sealing... had managed to properly finish it. Properly screw him over.
Naruto had never considered this could happen.
That it would be him being saved.
That it would be him surviving.
Hey. Naruto was the Hokage.
Sasuke sluggishly bodily slams into Naruto and practically falls over him in attempt to stop him, weighing both tired bodies on the floor, dust caking their already dirty clothes. Naruto still struggles because he wasn't going to leave the bastard- How dare he-
As soon as the seals reach his chakra core, latching onto his entire being, Naruto can feel the fight draining out of him. The seal attaches to the person then absorbed chakra, leeching energy off of the offered spirit until either the necessary amount was given or... it would use the life force.
He looks up at Sasuke, his face just inches from him and says- "Fuck."
This wasn't happening.
Not this. Not this.
Tears burn at the back of his eyes. He wants to sob like a child but Sasuke is relying on him. Those lives- the survivors are relying on him. He can't afford to break down now. It's too late now; he's surviving and he has to succeed with this single mission he didn't want to take.
He would rather submit to the Infinite Tsukuyomi than let them down. (They've died for him. And now Sasuke... It's the least he can do.)
He pushes his drained body into action; for once forcing his limbs to do something else rather than just fightpunch-dodge- attack and instead, to embrace Sasuke, etching his face, his expression, his everything into his memories. It was then that Naruto wishes for the first time that he had the Sharingan just so he could memorise Sasuke as a whole.
"No, nononono, Sasuke," Naruto desperately grasps at Sasuke's shirt, once white and now fully dyed a rusty brown copper. He can already feel the elaborate seal tugging on him, he pushes it back, stalling for time.
"Seals are my thing, you son of a bitch! "
Over the course of six years, the army of White Zetsus were wearing seals- strength enhancements, chakra storages, explosion tags and everything in between, so Naruto learnt and absorbed.
"It's in his blood," Karin had said primly, still wary of the fact that Naruto had welcomed her so quickly. She was openly displaying her disgruntlement at Naruto's 'inadequate' sealing knowledge even though he drained Konoha of all its information. "Uzumaki Fuuinjutsu, once a legend, is something no one should underestimate."
Naruto had frowned in thought, "Yeah, maybe I was always meant to be a seal-person, because Tou-san had completed the Hiraishin; a space-time seal that no one can replicate."
Karin had deadpanned, "I'm talking about your mother."
Sasuke was watching the interaction with horribly disguised awe- That bastard; never wanting to ask for lessons but in the end he had learnt sealing behind his back-
"Dobe," Sasuke smirks but it's an endearment now, a word that brings years of nostalgia. Naruto wipes away the blood that dribbles down Sasuke's chin and tries not to think of how they might never see each other again.
He stares into his onyx eyes, slowly evolving into three tomoes spinning lazily as wisps of his chakra are being poured onto the seal and he can feel his own chakra also feeding the seal, he pushes more in, trying to relieve the amount Sasuke has to spend.
Naruto can already feel the seal on his skin, brimming full with chakra, Sasuke's sharp, cool and deadly chakra, his own; raging yet soothing like the eye of a hurricane and Kurama's-
Wait, Kurama was pumping chakra in from the start so... Sasuke won't be completely exhausted and he can come after him-
"Y-You can repower the seal, right?" Naruto is blabbering, tears spilling involuntarily down his cheeks as hope sparks in him.
(A spark is enough, he tries to think, but a spark is easily snuffed out.)
"You have to come after me. After you gather your chakra, it's not that much for you. You're super strong and-" Naruto chokes on his words and he forces his throat to keep working. "Promise me, teme. Promise me, Sasuke, come after me."
Sasuke runs his fingers through his now long straight hair (what would've been a blonde mane, but now undoubtedly spoilt with blood and soot) undoing it from where it was messily tied into a ponytail... and doesn't answer.
Relief races in equal measures of panic and he feels so conflicted because he can go back and stop everything but-
"Sasuke, I can't-" Naruto sounds pathetic and weak, but it's true and he hates it, "I can't do it without you, so please."
Sasuke doesn't answer.
He can feel the seal nearly strangling him and he wants to talk for longer- stay with Sasuke for just a minute more.
Naruto just wants to see his face one more time but these goddamned tears-
"You're going off again," Naruto's voice had been uncharacteristically low. It wasn't a question but a statement.
"I'll be back." Sasuke had given a rare smile, raising his hand to tap two fingers against his forehead. "I- ...I'll come back."
Naruto had scrubbed his forehead, lightly scowling. He hadn't known why Sasuke always stumbled over those two lines, after all, they had exchanged the exact same conversation hundreds of times.
"Please," Naruto gasps, "Please don't leave me."
'You're going off again.'
And he waits, vehemently waits for his reassuring reply...
'I'll be back.'
('Wait for me.')
It never comes.
When Naruto rubs at his eyes, he feels two fingers tap gently on his forehead. Sasuke looks at him with that same rare smile. The one that was less of a smirk and more of a gentle reassurance.
"I-"
Naruto begs with every cell of his being that he says- 'I'll come back.'
('I'll be there with you soon.')
"I love you." Sasuke says instead and his voice is ridden with guilt and regret and oh so much yearning.
And all of a sudden, every stutter he made, every time he choked on his words- it made sense.
It was a phrase unspoken and Naruto had wished that Sasuke would've said it for the first time as a celebration after this five-going-six year war. Not when this was probably the last time they would see each other in a while- because, eventually, Sasuke will come. He has to.
(Sasuke didn't say so though. He didn't say he'll come back. He didn't say he'll be back.)
Naruto can feel the insistent tugging of the seal and he knows he can't resist it for any longer and 'I don't know what to do helpmeSasuke.'
Sasuke smiles at him again, a soft tilt on both corners of his mouth, it's loving, warming and soothing. Naruto opens his mouth and he wants to scream at him, yell and demand why? but he can't so at least one time he wants to say, he has to say-
"I-"
The seal fully activates, the runes shimmering across his limbs, exploding with power throughout his body and latching onto his soul, his chakra.
No. No-no-
Nonono. Waitwaitwait- NO-
Naruto gets pulled fifteen years into the past.
"I love you too"
(He didn't say.)
(He couldn't say.)