Chapter Text
Amongst ashes and small flickering flames a young man stares at the dead body of a rabbit goddess, the light slowly dwindling from her eyes.
Naruto stares numbly, with the harsh wind swirling the ashes around him, his last remaining comrades shuffling around him.
All seems lost now. After everything he had learned and fought for, even with all the tailed beasts sealed within himself, and having learnt to utilize and work with them, he hadn’t been able to save the last thing he had left. The world was dying around them, and he along with it.
The early months of the war had been the hardest, with most of the united shinobi perishing in the Infinite Tsukuyomi, and worse, after that the very few people who hadn’t been caught in the rabbit goddesses snare had begun to fight amongst themselves in the panic.
It didn’t take very long before it became clear that there would be no coming back from the 4th shinobi war.
Now it was just the five of them left, Sakura, Sasuke, Konkuro, Shikimaru and.. himself.
He looked up to gaze at his last few precious people, barely registering the tears streaming down his face. Sakura is the only one who meets his eyes.
“Naruto..” her voice cracks with the grief reflected in her eyes. Shes crying he realizes sluggishly. Shes calling out to someone but suddenly hes feeling exhausted, he cant quite make out what shes saying.
Sasuke is walking up behind her, a determined yet devastated gleam in his eyes, and his purple eye giving off a soft glow that makes him look paler than he usually does.
It wasnt until arms caught him as he began to slip that he realized what was happening. His mind struggling to keep up as his body begins to fail.
Suddenly Sakura is swimming in his vision. He almost doesn’t feel the panic rising in his stomach, almost doesn’t hear the nine beasts within comfort him.
Almost doesn’t hear Konkuro ask him to keep fighting just a little longer or the soft words Shikamru whispers in his ear.
“Your will of fire is never giving up protecting your precious people, so dont give up Naruto.”
Naruto can just make out the smell of blood and chakra surrounding him. He can hear sasuke ask shika about the seal that Naruto had created once. The very seal they had all agreed to never use.
He can hear all four of them agreeing to use it now.
He wants to cry out, he wants to shout at them for what they’re doing, knows they will die if they use this seal.
He tries to fight the drowsiness, he thrashes against the darkness and snarls, but his body is battered. He likely wont even live long like this as it is. Still he continues to struggle.
Its a losing battle, and he almost falls completely unconscious, but then he feels a tug, and he lets himself be pulled into the mind-space he shares with the tailed beasts.
Its almost never quiet here, but when he opens his eyes hes met with nine pairs of exhausted and grieving eyes and all of them reflect acceptance.
Its Kurama who speaks first.
“ Naruto.. ” Kurama seems to pause for a moment and look back at his siblings. “We have all decided were going to stay with you if you die…” His voice holds levels of grief that Naruto had never understood until the war. Now its all he can do not to flinch way from the raw vulnerability. Still, Kurama continues.
“Were all going with you, you wont be alone… no matter if your friends out there succeed or not. You are our pup.” Kurama’s voice is laced with sadness and even a small amount of hope.
Naruto simply closes his eyes, he’s not sure what to say, after all.. the decision already been made without him.
He’s powerless to stop it at this point.
With a deep inhale, Naruto opens his eyes, and lets out a breath. Letting his acceptance reflect in his eyes as he meets every tailed beasts eyes.
With a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and a tear the streams down his cheeks, he walks forward to Kurama’s paw.
“I know.” He cant bring himself to say more. He can feel the tug on his soul now, becoming more consistent as time passes, but he’s content to embrace is closest companion.
“Promise me that you’ll be there when i wake up Ku?” His voice cracks and sounds small, like a young scared child, but he cant help the fear that this is truly it.
“I promise kid.” Kurama whispers.
Everything begins to fade away as he lay there embracing kurama, the other beasts having made their way around them in a semi puppy pile. He can feel them all merging pieces of their chakra to his soul, almost like Kurama but not quite. Its all any of them can do as the fear of nothingness overwhelms them all.
And then… nothing.