Chương 165: The Reason behind it all
"AZAMI!!!!!!!" Naruto howled in a desperate voice as he kneeled down on the ground.
"Naruto!" Minato immediately arrived by Naruto's side as his paternal instincts kicked in.
Minato knew that the name Naruto had screamed out possibly had something to do with someone being close with him, but at the moment he could not guess who it was…
All he knew that there was only one thing he could, that is to face the upcoming threat head-on…
"Lord Second, Please bring the First here," Minato begged.
"Got it," Tobirama grabbed Shikamaru and instantly teleported out.
"Shū-kun," Minato called out, but little did he know that Shū was busy analyzing the memories.
"The first time was my mistake, but how was I foolish enough to make the same mistake once again…" Shū felt like cursing himself, but at the same time, he knew that he had already taken permission from Naruto to do it, otherwise how would Shikamaru, Naruto's top strategist of this era be of help to him.
This was the motivation that pushed him to commit this second mistake, but what was the error in the first place?
For that, we have to travel back to that time in the land of the waves…
—————————
Deep in the forest
"Haaaaa" Sasuke screamed as he ran up the tree,
(crack!) The part of the tree bark on which Sasuke stepped on, broke followed by Sasuke falling towards the ground once again; meanwhile Naruto was working out just a few meters away.
Sasuke watched Naruto as he trained, not wanting to be outdone, he interrupted Naruto.
"Can you give me some tips?" Sasuke said as he pointed to the marks, he made all over the tree bark.
"umm…..Sasuke, the best thing to do is to take a deep breath and a clear your mind before attempting every run. You are probably thinking of something while doing this training, thus interfering with your concentration." Naruto said after which he returned to his training.
Sasuke inhaled a deep breath as he looked to the top of the tree and focused his chakra.
(wham!) Sasuke ran off like a jet stream, keeping his mind blank until he reached the absolute top.
Meanwhile, as Naruto continued to do some squats, he took a moment to stare at Sasuke.
("Reminds me of the time when I taught Kawaki how to climb trees,") Naruto thought only to frown the next moment.
It was at this point that Shū woke up after being transported along with Naruto into this timeline.
Shū looked around the dark dimension within Naruto and then at himself in astral form…
("It worked…") Shū thought as he shifted into another dimension.
In this dimension,
Shū saw a massive collage of memories.
("Looks like I attracted the right person…") Shū thought as he proceeded ahead to read the memories.
As soon as Shū touched the massive collage of memories, his eyes glowed followed by him slowly closing his eyes as he went into a trance-like state to read through all the memories.
Time on the outside passed as Night became day and Naruto had finished with his morning shift in guarding Tazuna.
In the evening, Naruto had broken the seal and met his dad followed by his mom; meanwhile, Shū had just proceeded into learning Naruto's later part of his life in his teens when the war had begun.
This was after almost Sixteen hours after he had connected with Naruto's memories.
As time passed, Shū continued to read ahead into Naruto's memories proceeding into the last bits before the twelve-year seal.
As Shū's reading technique proceeded towards this seal…
*Rrrr!!!*
There was a small rip as one of the genjutsu blocks laid down on those part of the memories got damaged.
*sh*
Shū saw a small part of a memory that seemed to be drenched in overwhelming killing intent which slowly leaked out.
"What is that…?" Shū opened his eyes, waking up from his trance-like state and flew towards that part of the memory.
However, the leaking killing intent threatened to overwhelm him.
On the outside, Naruto suddenly felt a headache appear.
However, that didn't stop him from observing the battle.
At this moment, Sasuke fell down after having drained his chakra by using chakra dash and his Sharingan simultaneously. The new two tomoe Sharingan had taken a toll on his body, far more than what he could handle, and the accumulation from all the attacks from the needles that were stuck on his body already had him going through a tremendous amount of pain.
Haku jumped out of a mirror as he stared at Sasuke's body.
"Looks like his body gave up" he commented as he turned towards Naruto.
Naruto knew that this was Sasuke's limit and arrived beside Sasuke in between the crystal mirrors to retrieve his unconscious body.
"Wait!" Haku said, trying to stop Naruto.
"I'll come back," Naruto replied, not intent on running away as he instantly arrived beside Sakura and placed Sasuke gently on the ground.
As Naruto flickered away from Sakura to arrive in front of Haku, the leaking killing intent made him feel gloomy as though he had lost hope and all the good things in the world.
"Take care of him," Naruto said to Sakura in a low voice, then re-entered the crystal mirrors.
Haku was surprised seeing Naruto eagerly return.
"Naruto... are you going to fight me too?" Haku asked.
"I don't want to fight you either….. However, if you are still bent on killing old man Tazuna, then I have no choice..." Naruto said as he looked gloomily towards Haku.
"Why?" Haku asked.
"The bridge is the hope for the people of the country, and by killing Tazuna, you are taking their hope away," Naruto explained in a low tone as the killing intent continued to influence him.
On the inside, however, Shū was panicking from having almost committed a major blunder.
He tried his best to analyze the genjutsu blocks that Sasuke and Ino from the future had placed down but didn't seem to understand how it worked.
At this moment on the outside, Naruto was slowly being influenced by the killing intent.
"Please kill me Naruto…" Haku begged.
For a moment there, Naruto was shocked as his mind seemed to suggest for him to kill Haku suddenly.
"I won't kill you...." Naruto said as he walked forward.
"You took away the reason for my existence….." Haku continued.
"That still won't change my decision…" Naruto said as he continued to fight on two battlefronts.
One against Haku, and one in an internal struggle against this intent.
"Then I can only continue….." Haku said as he started running towards Naruto.
(slash!) Naruto had used his kunai to tear through the tendons on Haku's arms
"With this, you won't be able to perform your jutsu again….." Naruto said sadly as though he mocked himself, but internally he knew it was a close call of killing Haku against his own will.
Haku was facing Naruto with crestfallen eyes until he suddenly felt Zabuza's life in danger.
Haku new at this point he couldn't do anything as his arms were no longer usable, but he still chose to run towards Zabuza, but unfortunately, he couldn't make it and watched Kakashi zap Zabuza with his Raikiri.
"No!" Haku screamed as he ran towards Zabuza.
Zabuza couldn't believe as he fell to the floor, looking towards the sky, while he was stepped on by an unexpected arrival.
"Gatô!" Haku shouted, feeling his anger rushing to his brains.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, Naruto stood in a daze as he tried to make sense of what was going on, internally and externally as well.
Shū, on the other hand, was using all sorts of tricks to his knowledge to patch everything up, but none of his methods could close up the barely broken seal that was Oozing with killing intent.
"Oh well, I might as well use my time laws…" Shū murmured to himself, following which he swung his arms in different ways to control the time laws to reverse the damage he had done.
By the time Naruto could make sense of what was going on, all he could see was Haku turning towards Zabuza and saying his last words.
Naruto then turned towards the sky while tears overflowed.
("They both died even though I could have saved them...") Naruto thought as he looked towards the sky…
At this moment, just as Shū completed healing back the seal in place, the seal suddenly overpowered, causing Naruto to cry out feeling pain in his glabella.
("Guess this is my fault…") Shū looked at the seal he had just patched up.
He then turned towards the dark space behind him.
("Now that this is fixed, I might have to clean up on the outside as well…") Shū thought as he exited the dimension.
"NARUTO! " Kakashi screamed as he ran towards Naruto.
Naruto on his knees suddenly felt a stinging pain in his glabella (a part of the forehead in between the eyebrows) as though his brain was about to be split.
Kurama also felt the danger to his state of existence that time as he tried to find out what had happened.
*Sh!*
Greenlight burst forth from his glabella at this moment.
Things surrounding Naruto at this moment slowed down...
Kakashi ran slower, Gatô's men were still, the flowing oceans calmed down to the point that it was frozen and Kakashi also stopped at this moment completely…..
Naruto suddenly felt his pain washed away as he turned around, seeing everyone frozen as though he was stuck in time.
"Looks like you could not accept your own decision...." Naruto heard a voice he had never heard before in his life, the voice had a strange accent with an ancient manner of speaking very similar to how Hagoromo spoke with him. Naruto searched for the entity that spoke but could not catch sight of it.
"Who are you?"
"Where are you?"
"What's happening?"
"Why is everyone around me frozen?" Naruto asked hurriedly.
As he spoke, mots of light started gathering on to one spot slowly forming a silhouette of a young boy.
"You….." Naruto pointed towards the boy with his hands trembling.
"The name is Ôtsutsuki Shū, Shū as in attachment, obsession or persistence" The boy replied as his facial features started to appear ultimately.
Naruto was flabbergasted as he stared at the boy Sasuke had killed back in the final battle.
————————————
Shū quickly read through the twelve years of memories, immediately experiencing them as though he was Naruto himself.
By the time he had finished reading, he had tears appear at the side of his eyes as he finally understood why Naruto had participated in that mission to eliminate Otsutsuki members.
Although the reason itself was hidden from Naruto, that didn't prevent Sasuke from persuading Naruto to participate in this mission as the victims were Naruto, Sasuke and their family themselves.
If it were to be put in correct words, the real victim was Naruto himself since he had gotten too attached to the girl that was his granddaughter and the possessor of the forbidden eyes.
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