Vacuity II (Past & Future)

Naruto: Tales of Ashihara

Kakumei – Arc 2: The Curse of Time

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Chapter 57 – Vacuity II

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Naruto Uzumaki, down on his knees before the lake of the Valley of the End, can't believe what he's witnessing. Sasuke's Perfect Susanoo and his own Biju Mode are battling in front of him, exactly like 14 years ago.

"What did you say, Kurama?" he asks his Biju, who just expressed his thoughts about what they're seeing.

"This is… it seems like we're back to the past… Back to the war." explains Kurama. "This has to be an illusion."

"It can't be… I should be immune to any Genjutsu with my new sage mode." argues Naruto.

"No… I can still think of one Genjutsu that could work on you." answers Kurama, hesitatingly.

"You mean…" Naruto starts to say.

"Mugen Tsukuyomi." interrupts the fox. "This illusion was also activated by a flashing light emitted from an eye, just like what Sojobo just did."

Naruto joins his hands and tries to break out of the illusion the classic way, but it doesn't change anything to his situation.

"Tsk! How can this be?" he complains, feeling lost. "The eye on his forehead looks like nothing more than just a Mangekyo Sharingan. It shouldn't be able to cast such a powerful Genjutsu."

"It sure looks like a simple Sharingan, but probably isn't." suggests Kurama. "About that, I never told you, but the pattern in the eye reminds me a lot of Indra Otsutsuki's. It is the strongest Sharingan I've ever seen, still to this date. I doubt even Sasukes or Madara's Eien no Mangekyo Sharingan were better than Indra's. But his eyes were in no way capable of such prowess."

"Then how is this illusion possible?" asks Naruto again, still not understanding anything about what happens.

Before he can get an answer, he's suddenly grabbed by the cape and strongly thrown forward. Sojobo just appeared, like he broke out of emptiness, and tossed the Hokage away in the direction of the two chakra colossi battling on the river.

Naruto crashes into and through the Biju mode of his younger self. The 17 years-old sees the man fluttering in his armor and takes a while to realize how similar to him he looks.

"What's this?" the teenager asks, most likely to the Biju in his own body.

Sasuke Uchiha, having not yet noticed the presence of the Hokage, takes advantage of his adversary's apparent lack of attention, and grabs the spectral fox by the arm and the muzzle with his Susanoo. He lifts him up and throws him away, to the forest next to the lake. He then pulls out a new sword for his Susanoo and leaps toward the fox, immediately trying to impale him with his blade, aiming for his adversary's real body.

The yellow fox reacts in time and catches on the point of the sword with both his hands to stop it. As the Susanoo forces to push its blade through the beast's hands, Sasuke only now notices the other Naruto inside the Biju Mode, who looks totally different, more adult, and wearing a cloak.

As the Uchiha lowers his push on the weapon, intrigued by this stranger, the young Naruto eases himself as well and, like Sasuke, looks at the older version of himself, lying there next to him.

"What the hell?" the 2 young men say together, interrupting their final battle to find common answers.

Daihane Ame (Great Feather Rain)

While all three of them, Sasuke, Naruto and the Hokage Naruto, are distracted by each other, a dense, rapid, and wide wave of feather blades comes to them, wide enough to cover all of the two giants. Since none of them is prepared, the blades strike and easily pass through the armors of Susanoo and the Biju Mode. The older Naruto is the first to notice and react to the attack. The two younger versions of him and Sasuke aren't prepared or able to evade this offensive.

He has one Gudodama left, still by his side, and can protect himself from this lethal rain. But in just an instant, he thinks of how this will affect the two teenagers. He knows that he, even if struck by the blades, would be able to survive and heal. His past self may not be able to take it as easily as he will, but he could still tank this. However, Sasuke, here and in the present, is physically nothing more than human once you pass through his Susanoo.

Without a second thought, he gives up on protecting himself and catches the orb next to him. Quickly enough, before the feather blades reach his soul brother, he throws the ball with all his strength and shapes it as a wall. Sasuke, who could barely see it happen, even with his divine eyes, sees the black wall form before him, and is unaffected by the Daitengu's surprise attack. The two Naruto's, however, are stabbed countless times by the feathers and pushed away.

The Kurama Avatar disappears and the two jinchuriki fall to the ground, pierced by many blades. Sasuke watches back in confusion, and sees the two blond heads lying almost dead on the ground. One of them, the older one, manages to stand up and slowly pushes all the blades out of his body before turning around to check on his younger self. The younger one struggles to stand up, and hardly breathes. On the verge of passing out, he's already forced to his defeat.

Koton – Shunshin

As he watches over to see his friend nearing them, Sasuke is suddenly struck in the stomach by an extremely fast knee kick, too fast even for his eyes. The Uchiha coughs out his pain and surprise as a puddle of blood. Sojobo, holding the young man on his knee, pushes him harder and sends him crashing right into his friend, the other Naruto. The Hokage, who's finally recovering from this attack, sees Sasuke hit the young him, then roll and slide deeper in the ground and forest.

"This fight is just history repeating itself." says Sojobo as he sets foot right behind Naruto. "Trust me, Uzumaki, I've seen it happen over and over again, for 300 years."

Naruto turns around to face Sojobo who directly grabs him by the face again as another flash of light blinds him.

Kunino Tokotachi

He throws him back, fluttering and rolling through the air, and through space and ages for the second time. Breaking through a dimensional wall again, the 7th Hokage lands face first in the mud as his Biju Chakra Mode turns off. He gets on his knees and shakes his face to clean it. He briefly looks around and now sees the night sky over a devastated valley.

"What now?" he asks in his mind. "Did we change the setting again?"

"I… recognize this place and time too…" answers Kurama who sees the big wooden structures and statues in the background, added to his own self, held in a wood trap, asleep. "This is still the Valley of the End. Right at the time of its first redrawing."

Naruto looks in front of himself and sees a small cliff. Down, he hears blades colliding and muffled sounds of men in their last breath. He slowly crawls on the ground to see down the hill but stops straight, when he notices something close to him. On his left, a creature hiding behind a boulder, spectating the fight that is taking place down here.

Naruto recognizes this. It's Kurozetsu, the piece of Kaguya's will who caused Akatsuki, the 4th Great Ninja War, and even the repeating cycle of conflict between Uchiha and Senju. The creature didn't notice the Hokage's presence. Before he even does, he is surprised by another time traveler.

Meiton – Yami ni Ji

Sojobo promptly appears again, this time standing right behind Kurozetsu, and grabs the black mass with his hand covered in dark chakra. In an instant, leaving just enough time for the creature to feel its death, the Meiton covers up all its body and annihilates its will. Being purely made of it, Kurozetsu completely vanishes. Naruto simply watches in shock and sees the Daitengu, standing on the cliff's edge, look down to see Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha, all worn out by their fight, trying to finish each other for good.

"Here's another Indra and Asura fighting to death, as if they were the heroes of their stories." he says while raising a hand with the tip of his fingers glowing.

Koton – Kosen

As he prepares to shoot two light beams from his fingers, aiming for the two super ninja's hearts, Naruto leaps off to him and pushes his arm to deviate his attack. The two ray beams go up and illuminate the sky. Madara and Hashirama interrupt their battle for a moment and look up to see the two white lines go through the night sky.

Up the cliff, Naruto now hits the Daitengu with his shoulder and makes him fall to the ground, away from the hill and the sight of the founders of Konoha.

"Why did you bring us here?" asks the Hokage. "This is all just past history. We grew over it. We surpassed it. And this won't repeat itself again."

"Chaos, sir. Chaos and conflict, it is." says Sojobo as he stands up. "You didn't save the world from wars. You just allowed conflicts to take a brand new form. Time goes both ways you know, and I saw these endless conflicts in both of them."

Jikanteido

Just as he says this last word, Naruto feels a time freeze with his Rikudo Sage Mode, and hurries to react. The pause breaks as Sojobo makes contact with him while starting to push his finger claws in the Hokage's face. Before the deadly nails go further, Naruto moves his head aside, faster than ever, and gathers all his Bju's power in this fist.

Kurama Wangeki

He then immediately lands a punch in the Daitengu's chest, and carves a deep crack in it. Sojobo, pushed back by this blow, grabs the Hokage's cloak in his fall and pulls him in with him, tearing his cape off.

Kunino Tokotachi

Once again, Naruto is blinded by an intense light and feels himself fall through time, but forward now. After another break through space, he rolls on the ground and quickly gets up. Already prepared to get back to fight, he watches around and recognizes the streets of Konoha. They're damaged, like something dangerous took, or is taking place there.

After a little analysis, he remarks that it looks more like the streets of the old Konoha. The Konoha from the time before its rebuilding. Looking up, he sees the faces of the Hokage carved in the mountain. The Shodai, the Nidaime, the Third, his dad, granny Tsunade, and… That's all.

Now that he gets the time period, Naruto looks around to find what particular event is happening that Sojobo would want to show him. Over his head, he sees Tsunade and ninjas from the ANBU jump from roof to roof.

"Pain! What do you intend to do?" he hears Tsunade yelling.

Naruto immediately understands what is happening here. He looks up to the sky and sees him, the Tendo body of Pain, levitating high over the village and preparing for his ultimate strike

Shinra Tensei

"Hell no! Not this time!" yells Naruto as he jumps up to the sky.

He flies high over all the buildings of the village and goes to meet the almighty push before it reaches any structure. The 5th Hokage promptly stops in her run when she sees someone emerge from the street and pass before her.

"Naruto?" she whispers, kind of happy to see him, though he looks oddly different.

The 7th raises both his arms and stops the push with just his bare hands, holding it back from progressing closer to the village. Pain looks down and sees the single man holding down his most powerful jutsu, so powerful that he had to shrink his life expectancy to use it.

"How can this be?" asks Nagato to his own self, astonished by the unbelievable strength of this person.

"Come on! What was it again that Momoshiki did?" Naruto racks his brain to remember a specific jutsu used by the Otsutsuki. "Ah yes, that's it!"

Inyoton – Haki

Imitating his previous big adversary, Naruto uses the same jutsu flowing through the Gudodama to nullify any Ninjutsu, but channels it through his hands. This way, he completely cancels the repulsion that once destroyed all of his village. Tsunade and all of Konoha stare agape at the two floating people above the village. The invader, and a mysterious savior. Pain looks down to Naruto, and, for the first time, shows visible stress and panic on all his bodies' faces, deranged by the feat he just witnessed, but also by the terrifyingly deep aura of this man. Naruto looks up to Pain again, with a serious face.

Kage Bunshin

Without even a single hand sign, he summons a clone that appears directly behind the Tendo body. Before he can notice it, Pain is kicked in the nape and crushed in the air, completely annihilated even before hitting the ground. Immediately after this, the clone disappears.

"This also is just past history." yells Naruto, expecting Sojobo to show up again. "We got through it, fixed it and recovered. What's your point, man?"

"History repeats itself, didn't I say this already?" says a voice coming from nowhere.

"This never happened again." says Naruto. "I never allowed such a thing to reoccur."

"Didn't I also say that time goes both ways?" adds the Daitengu as he appears out of a crack in space, right behind Naruto. "There's the past, the present, and then… the Future."

Just as he says this last word, Naruto leaps forward to take his distance, but is once again struck by a blinding light. The leap he took forward turns into an endless fall through emptiness and time again. Now, Naruto hears Sojobo speaking as he falls through this vacuity.

"The village, this world, you, me… We're all doomed to an inevitable end in our own ways." says the Curse of Time. "You'll die. In many ways. You can escape it, but you'll only delay the inevitable. It will come to you, one way or another."

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Naruto finds himself in Konoha again, just where he left. Unprepared for this stop, he falls down, on a roof, next to the main square of the village. He gets on his knees and looks up to the Hokage monument, in order to quickly get an idea of the age he was sent to. Up there, he sees 7 faces, including his own as the last. For a moment, he thinks he's back home. The village looks the same as today.

"Are we back?" he asks Kurama.

"Look down, what is this?" the fox responds with a question.

Naruto lowers his eyes to see the center of his village. There, his own self is standing straight in the middle of the place, with someone very close before him. A man he doesn't know, with curvy brown hair cut short on the sides, and wearing a brown scarf around his neck. The man is holding something. A sword. An all black sword stabbing through Naruto's abdomen.

The Hokage watches, unsettled by this picture. By the side of his other self, Hanabi Hyuga, Anko Mitarashi, Shino Aburame, Moegi Kazamatsuri… He recognizes some of them. They all scream in shock, anger and panic. His sister-in-law, Hanabi, runs to the mysterious young man and assaults him, together with Shino who sends his insects on him.

The man pulls out the sword from the Hokage's belly and lets him fall dead on the ground. The two of his hands grow excessively big and menacing, with long, thick and sharp fingers that he uses to take cover from the insects and attack the kunoichi leaping toward him.

Naruto, the time traveling one, jumps off his roof and gets down to help his friends in this battle, but is surprised by the Daitengu, who appears, falling down the building next to him.

"You… The village, the world. It will all be reduced to dust!" he says fast as he emits the flashing light from his eye again.

Kunino Tokotachi

Naruto's fall from the roof turns into another trip through time.

"What was that?" he thinks, to Kurama and himself. "Was this real? Who was that boy?"

Still shaken by what he's been shown last, his new trip ends with him hitting the ground of Konoha as originally intended. Behind him he hears the Daitengu softly land on his feet. He immediately gets up, ready to turn around and fight, but freezes, petrified by the new setting he now discovers.

It's Konoha again, devastated, all ravaged, with not a living thing in the horizon. However, he sees blood, and feels exhaustion through the air. Looking up to the great cliff, he sees not 5, not 7, but 8 faces, all too damaged to be identified. Sojobo steps closer to him and bends his large body over in an attempt to catch a glimpse of his face, checking if he can now see the despair in the Hokage's orange eyes.

"This is just an illusion. This isn't real." says Naruto aloud, to his own self.

"This isn't real… for now." adds the Daitengu while stepping next to the Hokage who's still on his knees as he didn't even completely stand up.

Seeing the Hokage's eyes, the Daitengu is disappointed not to see the despair he should. Suddenly, he raises his upper body and looks forward, unsettled by who's presence he senses. There, he sees someone appear out of the ruins. He knew what he'd see here, but is still surprised. Naruto sees the shock in Sojobo's plain red eyes and looks forward, to see what caught his attention.

There is a man, a tall man, dressed all in black, covered with dust and scratches. He looks nearly two meters tall and has long black hair. He wears the symbol of the Minamoto clan on an armband under his left shoulder. The hair and the size of this person remind Naruto of someone in particular.

"Tsubai?" he asks, persuaded to recognize his friend from Kiri.

The man turns around and looks at the Daitengu and Hokage who are just like him among the debris. Slightly turning his head, he shows his deep dark blue eyes and the black mask covering half of his face.

"Takeshi." corrects Sojobo, certain of his guess.

Naruto doesn't believe it at first, before taking a better look and noticing the mole next to the man's right eye. He, indeed, looks very much like a neglected, older version of the 10 years old Takeshi Minamoto.

"Is it really you? Takeshi?" asks Naruto. "What is this place?"

"Lord 7th? Sojobo?" he says, finally noticing them, like he's speaking to two old friends from the past. "You must be from another time. Sojobo, you're probably dragging him around, aren't you?"

Sojobo doesn't answer, and just stares trustfully at the tired looking man. Naruto gasps, disturbed by the apparent familiarity between Takeshi and the Daitengu, but tries to think straight.

"Let me guess… You're from the time before Kakumei. Right after Sasuke made his big mistake by killing Momoshiki." the rogue one guesses.

"Takeshi, what happened here? Where is everyone?" Naruto hurries to ask, mostly concerned about his village.

"7th Hokage… There was no other way left." answers the strange man, looking around to the destroyed village.

"What do you mean?" asks the Hokage, refusing to believe what he hears. "You didn't do this…"

"This is the world where hope died, uncle." adds Takeshi.

Sojobo stays quiet and stares at the jinchuriki who crawls on the ground, clenches his fist, and contains his feelings. After a short pause, Naruto raises his head, with his eyes full of determination, and gets up to stand next to Takeshi.

"Hope never dies." he proudly says, making Sojobo sigh, sick of this positivity.

Suddenly, a black rift appears in the sky above, drawing all their attention.

"No, sorry, but there's really no hope left here." answers Takeshi who readies himself for a battle.

Out of the portal, a short sized figure comes out. Because it stands before the sun, Naruto only manages to see its silhouette, the shape of a man with long pointy and messy hair, a long coat with a high collar, and most notably, a horn that seems wrapped around the back of his head, pointing up and right to the sky.

"Sojobo, you better leave now, before you join hope in the afterlife." says Takeshi, still emotionless.

"Hell nah, I'm not leaving you here, boy." says Naruto, before Sojobo.

"Oh Come on, Naruto!" complains the Daitengu. "You're face to face with an ending world, where no one is left, and still pretend to have hope? I know what you lack. It's fear."

Naruto turns around to see Sojobo who exchanges a quick but trustful gaze with Takeshi. The full black rogue ninja then surprises the Hokage with a kick in the torso, sending him to flutter away just as another blinding flash of light is released from Sojobo's eye.

Kunino Tokotachi

Naruto's fall turns once again into a leap through time during which he hears the voice of the Daitengu resonate in his mind.

"But no worries, I can fix this issue." adds the curse of time, following his last sentence. "I can see your future and I can read your fears. I know just where I need to bring us for you to abandon hope."

The Hokage lands on his back, in his living room. For a moment, he feels relieved and tired, as if he could finally rest, but can't get up. After a quick moment of struggling, he realizes that he's impaled on a stone pick that's grown from the ground through his floor. In front of him, he notices a woman, a very tall woman that he first mistakes for Kaguya due to their many similarities.

Her image isn't quite unpleasant, but what she's holding up is more. In each hand, she carries a body. In her right, she holds the collar of a young, long round-spiky purple haired teenage girl. In her left, she pulls the hair of Naruto's unconscious wife.

"HINATA! HIMAWARI!" screams Naruto in despair and anger, finally reached by Sojobo's point, that all of this is just waiting to happen.

Driven by sorrow, shock and rage, Naruto hits the pillar that impales him with both his knees and breaks it. He throws himself forward, trying to ignore the pain of the wound, and reaches for the woman's head, that he now tells apart from Kaguya. As he comes, this horned woman lightly turns her head covered with black markings pouring down her face and body, and smiles to provoke him.

Kunino Tokotachi

Before he can reach her, he's sent blind through time again, and finds himself, an instant later, in a forest. He's shaken by the sudden and quick travel, but manages to stand on his feet. Just before him, right where the tall strange woman was standing a second ago, he now sees a masculine silhouette with its back turned to him. The man wears a white hooded cloak all around his body. The only thing that can be seen is his yellow pointy hair.

"Boruto?" Naruto guesses.

The man slowly turns around to see who just called this name, but before he can show his face, he suddenly holds his chest, and screams at the top of his lungs in extreme pain. Naruto takes a step back, now unsure of his guess. This person's body contracts itself, implodes and then explodes. After an explosion that pushed him a few meters back, Naruto stands his ground and watches as the dust and blast clouds settle. A few seconds pass, and he sees extremely long white blueish hair emerge, hiding a silhouette. A silhouette who turns around and opens three eyes that glow through the mist. Two light shining blue eyes, and a complete red eye on the forehead.

"Kagu…" Naruto starts to say, unsure of this new suggestion, more troubled than ever.

He's interrupted by an extremely powerful force of repulsion that sends him flying back and away.

Kunino Tokotachi

After just this short moment, Sojobo already sends Naruto fluttering in time and void again. Naruto and Kurama are just as confused as each other.

"Was that the past? It was Kaguya!" Naruto exclaims in panic to his Biju, choosing to deny what he first thought he saw.

"Was it not Boruto? It was the future?" Kurama asks with a troubled voice, certain of having recognized his host's son.

"Now I feel it." the two of them now hear the Daitengu's appeasing masculine voice echo in the void. "This is what you fear, what you dread… Loneliness. They will all die, your wife, daughter, son, friends, village, and of course, as I said earlier, you."

The time fall stops with Naruto abruptly landing on his feet standing straight in the middle of Konoha, when he feels a sword stab through his abdomen. He comes to his senses and looks in front of him, where the same mysterious boy as earlier, with the brown scarf, is right before him.

Sojobo simply brought him back to this point in time, but to make him experience it from the right perspective. The perspective of who is supposed to be his future self. Still feeling the giant hole carved by the massive stone pic that grew in his living room earlier when he saw his wife and daughter, Naruto now also has the sensation of being pierced by this sword added to it. It feels like this thing is ripping a major part of his being out. Before he can worry too much about it, the Daitengu emerges again.

Jikanteido

Sojobo cracks out of space just before Naruto, exactly at the same time as a new time pause starts. As the only moving being, he pushes the one who stabbed Naruto away and takes his place, leaving the weapon through the Hokage's abdomen. Naruto didn't even have time to see the face of this boy. All he saw was the brown hair, brown scarf and what looked like red tattoos on his left arm.

"You'll die here, or at any other place, and you won't be able to save anyone anymore." he tells him, as if he could hear it. "Plenty of other deaths await for you on the way. Oddly in your case, they are all deemed to happen. As if one death won't be enough for who you are."

Kunino Tokotachi

Again, he spreads the light of his Genjutsu through the world. He pushes Naruto back, undoing the time pause as soon as he makes contact with him, but also sending him in another foreseeing. Naruto just briefly feels himself fall down and, as he hits the ground, finds himself in a new set.

Lying back to the ground, feeling like he's sinking down, he feels the ground heating and melting under him, as if the whole planet's core was growing and heating up.

He feels a foot violently step on his chest, and break his rib cage by pressing against it, but without too much effort. He opens his eyes and yells the pain out, before trying to see who's stomping him down. He senses a unique chakra. A chakra so unique that he never felt anything like it before. Something like natural or cosmic energy,… No. It's more like Rikudo Sage Chakra but better, more powerful, more pure, more dense, more intelligent. As if it came from another plane of existence.

Finally able to see, while his lungs and heart are being flattened by the effortless press of this being's foot, all he distinguishes is a long mantle, a bearded chin, and 6 golden horns, 3 on each side. Between these horns, two wise red eyes staring at him, with a disturbingly disappointed and sad look.

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End of Chapter 57 – Next Chapter: Vacuity III