Chapter 2

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a white ceiling without a speck of dirt on it. I had hoped I had finally passed on to the pure world where my family and friends were waiting for me, so I got up and looked around. But I was soon disappointed, there was no one here, none that I could at least sense, that was when I noticed the huge crystal suspended in mid-air at a fair distance from me surrounded by curtains, I chose to walk over there and see what it contained as I could make out a blurry outline from it. As I walked, I noticed the room was rather large and looked like some royalty lived here. Its colour scheme appeared to be white and gold throughout the room.

As I walked closer I started to see what truly was inside the crystal. It was a humanoid figure in physique, with slicked-back dark hair, oval eyes, and very thin eyebrows. Its eyes were very unusual, consisting of four black circles which would change alignment. It did not seem to have any arms or legs beyond short stumps. It seemed suspended within an unusual barrier which was shaped like a crystal connected to either side by bright white curtains as the focal point of a large, elegant room.

As I got close I heard a voice speaking and quickly looked around but I was still the lone occupant of the room besides whatever this thing was." I am not a thing" I looked up shocked that the thing in there was still alive.

" I repeat, I am not a thing", I quickly looked down in shame and apologized.

" I am the Soul king" he explained, so this was the afterlife, " Yes, this is the afterlife, and I am its ruler, My purpose is to regulate the flow of souls into and out of the afterlife and keep the flow stable. Without me, the balance will be lost and all of existence will collapse."

I looked wide-eyed, this soul king seems to be quite powerful as he was the linchpin of existence.

"Why am I here, is this where all the dead come?" I finally spoke for the first time after waking up, my voice seemed weird.

" No this is not the place where souls arrive after they pass on, they usually go to the soul society or pure world as your people call it"

" Are all my family and friends here, can I finally be with them!" I asked with some hope in my voice.

"No, They have all been reincarnated many times over through the soul cycle, it what souls do when they die here, their memories are wiped and they are reincarnated into a new world as a new being"

I looked down again, this time to hide my tears at the loss of my loved ones. It was then I noticed what he said."Many times over, what do you mean by that? it couldn't have been more than a few weeks since their passing!"

"And that is why you are here. You are in the far future. The ones who had already died during your battle have passed on but the ones who were absorbed by the soul tree are now inside you since you had sealed the tree in you and as they were quite a lot of them, the balance of the soul cycle was severely disturbed and many souls had not joined the reincarnation cycle so I had to intervene and since a soul can not house more than a few souls at a time and yours was housing thousands of them I had no choice but to take action"

"In the future!" that was quite a shock, but more importantly "what did u do with the souls that were inside me"

"I released them from your soul in form of energy but since they were so many of them, a little of residue was left behind by each of them but even that was too much so I had to get creative and modify your soul"

"What do you mean, modify my soul? did you turn me into some sort of monster and why did you go through all this trouble, couldn't you just have let my soul die and release all the other souls into the reincarnation cycle "

"No that would have been impossible, think of it like this. Consider your soul as a drop of water in a bucket which is mostly empty, now after the sealing, the bucket was filled with millions of souls, each of them had assimilated with your own now they couldn't have been said as a different soul anymore

and if this bucket of the soul was to be dropped into the steady stream of the reincarnation cycle, what would happen?"

"The stream would flood" I answered with wide eyes understanding the implications and its effect" It would cause an imbalance in the flow and disrupt everything that follows after it"

"Exactly, and to answer your previous question, no I did not turn you into some kind of abomination, I merely merged your soul with the one who held almost the same strength as yours"

"Merged with who?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer, I just didn't want it to be true and the answer was exactly that I feared

"Sasuke Uchiha"

" But why him? he just wanted it all to be over and pass on" I shouted with sadness in my voice

" He was the only one with a soul strong enough to compliment yours, he was the yin to your yang, the moon to your sun. He was the only choice, and sacrificing a single soul for the sake of millions was a choice I was willing to make" he answered with a stoic voice

" What now?" I asked with resignation in my voice

"I will be sending you back in time, you have to make sure that the calamity you faced doesn't come to pass, you will be provided with assistance and false memories so no one knows who you truly are, you can use the knowledge of the future to your advantage, you can't tell this conversation to anyone, no one will believe you anyway", there was some mirth in his eyes when he said that.

"You are no longer the son of Kushina Uzumaki and Minato kamikaze, you are no longer the child of prophecy, the choices that you make will be of your own doing. "

"What if I choose to not go back and die here and now"

" You don't have a choice in that matter, it has already been decided, farewell, for now, I will be meeting you very soon".

With that said there was a bright flash and Naruto disappeared from the room leaving the soul king alone at least until a figure warped into the room.

" So we meet again Naruto." said the soul king to the figure slowly walking towards him," How much time has it been since I last saw you?"

"Enough time" came the vague reply.

"It's time," said Naruto after staring at the soul king.

When I woke up again I was being carried by a man with red hair, the man seemed to notice I had woken up and stopped walking. He gently sat me on the ground near a tree and asked for my name.

"Naruto," I said,

" Hello Naruto, l am Kaito"

Before the conversation could proceed l passed out.

The next time I woke up, l noticed I was lying on a bed and by the smell of it, I was in a hospital, my least favorite place. As I started to get up I noticed that my hands had shrunk, I quickly got off the bed and nearly fell face-first on the floor when my legs didn't touch the legs as l expected them to. I realized what had happened quickly, that damn soul King had shrunk down to being a kid again, I quickly ran to the bathroom for a mirror to check what else he had changed, I quickly realized that my height was so small that I couldn't even see my face only the reddish-black hair that to only when I jumped high enough, but judging by my height l seem to be around 8 years old. I quickly washed my face and drank some water.

When I turned to go back to the room I noticed a man standing there, I quickly turned red with embarrassment as I saw the man smiling at me. I would have looked quite stupid jumping up and down in front of a mirror. As I returned to the bed, without making eye contact with the man, he finally spoke "I am Kaito"

"You are that man I talked with near the tree!" Oh my god, my voice sounds child-like and shrill

"Yes I am" he replied with mirth dancing in his eyes

"How did I get here?" l asked looking around the room

"I found you drifting near the beach, unconscious"

"Where am I?"

Kaito gave me a funny look before answering

"You are in Uzushio Naruto"

I widened my eyes in shock, Uzushio had been destroyed during the second shinobi war, but if it still existed then it could mean only one thing. I was transported to a time before the second shinobi war.

"Are you ok Naruto? you seem shocked"

"I am ok " was my quick reply.

"I am surprised that I made it here"

I didn't mean to say that, what was happening to me?

"What do you mean by that and how did u get here, I didn't see anyone else besides you, there wasn't even a boat nearby"

"My boat got caught up in the whirlpools and was destroyed" how did l know to say that? then suddenly there was a searing pain through my head and l got all these memories of a life I had never lived, of a mother and a father that I never had. I had false memories of a life that I never lived. The pain seemed to wash away after I lived through all the memories, It seems this was the false memory transplant that the soul king talked about earlier.

As I raised my head, saw Kaito again l could see concern for me in his eyes, it was weird seeing someone so concerned for me, It made me feel happy.

"Are you ok, should I call in a nurse?"

"No" l replied with as big of a smile I could give to ease his concern "Just some headache, l should be all right"

"You know I have a daughter who's just about your age"

"Really!" I exclaimed and tried to act like an excited little kid "will I get to meet her!"

"Sure, why not she will love to have a new friend"

"Now, how did you reach here, if u don't mind me asking"

"Oh, l took a boat and followed the directions my mother told me to" This fake memory thing is coming real handy now

"And what is your mother's name?", Kaito seems to be fishing for information, well l would too if an eight-year-old suddenly showed up in my village with mysterious circumstances.

"Katsumi, that's what my father sometimes called her"

"And what's your father's name?"

"Hiroto"

"No last name?" well l can't exactly say Uchiha and Uzumaki now can l.

"l don't know, they never told me, it was for my safety they said"

It was at this moment the nurse entered, she too had red hair, it seems what they said about all Uzumaki's having red hair was true

"The result is here" she spoke in a way as she was speaking to her kage, with extreme respect and admiration.

"Thank you" was the curt reply she from Kaito after which she left the room

After looking through the report, he flashed a smile at me and said "Well your parents were truly keeping you safe"

"What do you mean?" I asked, not knowing what he meant " What's in the report?"

"It says you are an Uzumaki".