The silence is ripped away.
It isn't the sound of the bridge or the chirping of the Chidori that brings him back. It is fire. A white-hot, jagged agony blooming in his gut that forces a ragged, wet gasp from his throat.
"Huff—huiii—ahhhh!"
Naruto's eyes snap open, but the world is a blurred smear of ash and crimson. He tries to sit up, but his muscles scream in protest. He looks down. His stomach isn't just wounded; it's anchored. A kunai is buried deep in his abdomen, the black steel hilt shivering with every frantic beat of his heart.
Then, the sound hits him.
It's a rhythmic, wet thwack-shing—the sound of steel meeting meat. He turns his head, and his breath hitches. This isn't the Bridge. This is a slaughterhouse.
He sees silhouettes dancing in a gruesome ballet of spray and steel. Bodies hit the mud with sickening, heavy thuds. The air doesn't smell like the salty ocean anymore; it smells of copper, burnt hair, and emptied bowels.
It's a dream, Naruto's mind whimpers, his teeth chattering. Yeah… a dream. I was with Sasuke. I was with Sakura. I.... died.
I ... remember the cold feeling . This is just my brain playing a trick before the end.
But the pain is too loud to be a lie.
Thirty feet away, a figure detaches itself from the chaos. A shinobi—no, a boy. He looks barely older than Naruto, his face smeared with someone else's life, eyes wide and glassy with a killing fever. He sees Naruto. He levels his kunai.
He charges.
Naruto's face turns the color of bone. He can't breathe. He can't think. His fingers twitch in the dirt, scraping against something hard. A stone? A discarded shuriken? He doesn't look. He just grips it.
The boy lunges, a desperate, clumsy arc of steel aimed at Naruto's throat.
Move.
The command comes from somewhere deep, somewhere primal. As the boy leaps, Naruto flings the object in his hand. It's a distraction, a jagged piece of slate, but it works. The boy's eyes flicker to the projectile for a fraction of a heartbeat.
In that heartbeat, Naruto acts.
He reaches down, grabs the hilt of the kunai buried in his own flesh, and pulls.
The sound is horrifying—a wet, suctioning slide of metal against organ. A scream catches in his throat, turning into a bloody foam at his lips. The pain is executing. It's a total system failure, a roar of agony that turns his vision white.
But he doesn't stop.
The boy is mid-air, momentum carrying him forward. He realizes his mistake too late. He sees Naruto rising like a ghost from the red mud, the stolen kunai gripped in a trembling hand.
The boy makes a choice. He throws his off-hand forward, sacrificing his forearm to shield his vitals. It's a veteran's move in a child's body. Decisive. Brutal.
Naruto doesn't think. He twists, his body moving with a fluid, terrifying instinct he didn't know he possessed. He sidesteps the sacrificial limb, his leg sweeping out in a low, vicious arc that catches the boy's ankles.
The boy collapses, gravity and momentum betrayed.
Before the enemy can hit the ground, Naruto is on him. He drives the stolen steel home. He doesn't look away. He feels the resistance of the ribs, the sudden give of the chest, and the final, frantic shudder of a life escaping.
Naruto stares into the boy's eyes. They are the same age. They might have shared a bowl of ramen in another life.
The boy's hand claws weakly at Naruto's sleeve, then falls limp.
The adrenaline that held Naruto together evaporates. The "fire" in his stomach returns, ten times hotter than before. He looks up, seeing the blurry, retreating figures of the enemy through the haze of battle smoke.
"I... I'm still..."
His knees buckle. The world tilts, spinning into a whirlpool of grey and red. The mud rises up to meet him, cold and indifferent.
As his face hits the earth, the last thing he feels is the warm blood from his stomach soaking into the dirt, and the terrifying realization that he is very much alive.
IMPORTANT - Please read the author thoughts if you find aomelines difficult. I don't know how it operates but yeah try to just read it. And also give me reviews where there is need of improvement. Or I can say where there is more need for realism.
Just so you know I always like the novels where I can visualise the scene it is more fascinating that way. So I always tried to be more realistic and vivid. So if there is something that didn't feel like it just say so on the review.