Chapter Text
Epilogue
Naruto watched Sasuke’s body fall to the ground.
The motion seemed too slow to be natural, too still to be intended.
The kunai in his throat glistened in the smoldering sun, reflecting the bright rays of light.
The heat must be playing a trick on his eyes.
Sasuke did not get up again.
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In the aftermath of the shock, Naruto noticed that it wasn’t only Sasuke who fell.
Madara, too, lay still in the dirt.
He should feel joy at the sight.
The man who chased them for years, the man who killed his friends and family, the man who made his life utterly miserable — was dead.
But it did not matter. Not truly.
Sasuke was gone.
His last friend. His last companion. His last anchor.
Gone.
The beginning of the war had been difficult.
Many died; his friends died. But Naruto got over it.
He still mourned them — yes — but the pain dulled with time.
He did not think of Gaara’s death. He did not mention it. He buried it deep in his memories — so deep it would never resurface, lest thinking of it break him completely.
When he was announced 2nd Commander of the Allied Shinobi Forces, things changed.
He was the one who sent squads out that would never return.
He was the one who decided when and where to set up camp; so inevitably, it was his fault when the camp was attacked.
He simply made the wrong choices.
It was his fault, undeniably, that Shikamaru had to stay behind to allow the civilians to escape.
His fault, that it came to this day.
Each and every death weighed on his shoulders — and with each and every death, he despised himself more.
Removing the kunai from Sasuke’s throat was an emotionless task.
One more body to burn. One last body.
As he raised the kunai to his own throat, he felt nothing.
No despair. No sadness. No fear.
Nothing.
Kurama watched his host through hooded, exhausted eyes.
They had fought together for nineteen years. They had lived together for thirty-five.
He would never quite admit it out loud, but those years had changed him.
With a smile on his face — his first smile in many decades — Kurama began to draw a seal made of pure chakra inside his host.
He knew it would cost him everything to send Naruto back.
But Naruto was worth more than anything Kurama could offer.
Naruto, noticing the immense use of chakra within his own body, entered their shared mind space in a panic.
He was bleeding from his neck, but the wound was already healing.
“Kurama, what are you doing?” he asked, voice trembling.
In a somber, meaningful tone, Kurama answered:
“Giving you the chance you deserve.”
Naruto awoke again in an unfamiliar environment.
He lay on the ground in the middle of a forest.
A lush and green forest.
Naruto could not believe his eyes.
Vegetation. Birds. Life.
He hadn’t seen a proper forest in years. Hadn’t heard birds sing in decades.
He pushed the thought away. He could not bear to think of the lifeless world he came from.
In the quietness of the forest, Naruto laughed.
This was either a dream — or he had died after all.
How magnificent the afterlife could be.
He laughed out loud, simply because he hadn’t laughed in so long.
He screamed, yelled, made as much noise as he could — and he could hear birds scatter in response.
He braced himself for the consequences — for zetsu to descend upon him — but nothing happened.
He stretched out his chakra, letting it flow around him, sensing the trees and weeds and ants on the ground.
Unused to so much life and energy, he could feel even what was too small for his eyes to see.
And still — nothing happened.
“Where the fuck am I?”
No answer came.
No snide remark from the fox within him.
That was when he noticed the emptiness.
Kurama wasn’t there.
He could still feel his chakra — but it felt different. Tightly interwoven with his own, no longer a separate entity.
He had always thought, stupidly enough, that Kurama would be with him in the afterlife.
Naruto had never been truly alone. Kurama had always been there — if not a voice, at least a presence.
Looking down at his abdomen, he saw the seal still adorning his skin — but the presence once surrounding it was gone.
His hair fell into his face, long and heavy, cascading down until it brushed his pectorals.
Obstructing his view.
Naruto hesitated, touching the hair that could not possibly be his.
He cut it regularly. Long hair was impractical — hard to wash, hard to maintain.
And it was red.
Locating the nearest puddle — a puddle, there was water here — he looked into his reflection.
Long red hair framing a familiar but slightly sharper face. Purple eyes with slit pupils.
Why would he look like this?
Was this not the afterlife after all?
Stretching his chakra further, he examined his surroundings.
The forest seemed endless — and so full of life.
He stretched further.
Then he felt something that could not be real.
A city.
An enormous city full of rushing people — with a few strong chakra signatures among them.
Familiar chakra signatures.
He knew these presences. He knew these streets.
Konoha.
His beloved home. Konoha — it stood.
It stood.
Naruto rushed to the city wall, careful not to draw attention.
It was habit — to move silently, to hide his chakra.
When he reached the wall, climbed atop it, and saw the stone faces — he understood.
“What did you do, Kurama?”
Kakashi’s head was missing.
Tsunade’s too.
In fact — Minato’s face looked too new.
But that was impossible. Tsunade had told him countless times, in her drunken stupor, how reluctant Minato had been to have his face carved.
Kushina had only convinced him a week before Naruto’s birth. A week before their deaths.
In a panic, Naruto turned — and ran.