A/N

Another red-haired BAMF time-traveling femNaruto fic from me! Yay! Please, take note that this will be more serious than 'Luminous'. I like adding dark streaks to my characters, Naruto isn't an exception. And romance will be a slow burn, so don't get all hyped up right from the start. But I have great plans for this story, you'll see. If you can live through my inhumanly slow updates that is ^^

Like always, self-indulgent fics FTW!

English is not my first language and I have no Beta, so please be aware of mistakes.

Sharing the Sky

Prologue

It hurt.

Searing fiery bursts pulsated throughout all her body, jarring and brutal. With each passing minute the pain only amplified, without hope of the briefest reprieve, and with each passing minute her consciousness ebbed. Black mists swirled at the edges of her mind drawing, taunting her into sweet oblivion.

And every time Naruto refused to give in. Every time, the roar of defiance tore out of her raw throat as she struggled against the chains – the bindings inscribed with special seals to contain Kurama and her.

She was not about to let her friend be eaten by a giant husk of a god, to let him cease to exist.

No matter the cost.

Naruto resisted the extraction with everything she got. Everything she still had left.

Kurama was silent for a while now, not even a growl. Being ripped apart, stripped of his very existence drop by drop as his chakra got absorbed by the hulking demonic statue. Naruto's heart constricted at the thought of how much pain he should be in now.

"So stubborn. Just stop resisting already."

Naruto bared her teeth and snarled at the owner of that deep, vile voice. A guttural, feral sound that had no place coming from a human's throat.

Obito Uchiha, however, only tilted his head to the side, sizing the teenage girl in front of him with dark amusement etched upon his features. "Still so lively," he noted as dry as sandpaper. "No matter. The Kyuubi will be extracted and the Infinite Tsukuyomi casted upon the world."

He stood so close… If she could—somehow could reach him—tear him apart—rip his heart out—shred him into pieces so small they would be unidentifiable—if—she—could—just—

In a rush of adrenaline, Naruto lunged forward, eyes glowing demonic red.

Obito retreated a few steps back, letting out quite an undignified yelp of surprise. Just in time too, as the claws swiped right there his throat had been a split second ago.

Chains creaked and whined at the strain, but managed to hold out and Naruto bounced back. Her head dropped, cascading red hair hiding her expression as she bit down on a scream that threatened to escape.

"Your resistance is futile!" the Uchiha hissed, angry now, his pride wounded. "I will save this world!"

His words splintered inside her causing more pain than the extraction, but Naruto only wanted to laugh. Save this world? Just how delusional a person should be to think that he could save the world by destroying it?

Just when the agony was at its worst, it dissipated. The relief was so sudden and unexpected, that Naruto slumped in her constraints, all the remaining fight zapped away in an instant.

A sound reminiscent of thousands of birds chirping filled the air with double wrath. The dark cave lit up with a ghostly light of electricity snapping and whipping around.

There was a loud noise and yelling. Fighting, Naruto distantly noted, but she had no energy left to even look. Someone's cold hand touched her cheek and she instinctively flinched.

"It's okay, it's okay," the familiar voice soothed. Another hand brushed disarrayed hair out of Naruto's face, a surprisingly gentle gesture.

Naruto forced her eyes open, squinting at the blurry blurb in front of her. Finally, the world slid back into focus enough for her to make out her father's face. His eyes looked so blue against the background of wild Chidori light, despite the black sclera that surrounded them.

Naruto's throat closed up. The tiny, "Dad…" that managed to squeeze out sounded particularly strangled.

"I'm here, Naruto. It's okay. Everything will be okay."

A muffled shout, a groan, and a slightly shocked, "Kakashi!" behind halted Minato's comforting murmur. An acrid, irony smell assaulted everyone's noses.

The blond turned around to look at what happened. Naruto's heart sank as she caught a sight of her sensei hunched over, panting heavily and gripping one of his arms. Or what was left of it as all she could see was a bloody stub. Blood oozed through his fingers and dripped on the ground.

"Hurry. Go," Kakashi muttered, pushing the person who steadied him away in an attempt to get them all moving. "Get her out of here. He'll be back soon."

Naruto's eyes welled up with tears as she stared at her sensei.

"Hold her," Minato ordered the same person who was just at Kakashi's side, "I'll release the seals."

As the Yondaime began tinkering with the chains, different hands came around Naruto and pressed her against their own body to keep her in place. A sigh escaped her when the man shifted his position to relieve her arms from the strain as much as it was possible.

Warm breath ghosted her ear as the man whispered, "Still the same crybaby as ever," with a distinct lilt of teasing.

Sasuke.

Naruto wanted to throw back some sassy reply as she always did, to laugh as she aimed a punch at that smug smirk on his handsome face, but instead what left her mouth was a choking noise that sounded too much like sob for her liking.

The bindings clicked and fell. Suddenly losing what kept her vertical, Naruto's legs buckled and she all but collapsed, unable to muster even an ounce of strength to catch herself.

In one fluid move, Sasuke swooped the girl up into his arms. Some other time, the latter would have protested—she wasn't some damsel in distress!—but she was hurt and tired, bone-deep exhaustion, both physical and mental, sinking its claws into her. Yet, Sasuke was solid and warm and felt like home, so instead, Naruto said nothing and clung to him like he was the only safe port in a storm.

"You need to go," Kakashi urged as he wobbled closer, face pale as a sheet and drenched in sweat from exertion to stay on his feet. "Remember the plan."

"Sensei, what—"

A hand settled on top of Naruto's head, silencing her. It smelled like blood and smeared her already red hair with it as the man rustled them in an intimately familiar way. Kakashi's eyes closed to match his hidden smile as soon as she made eye contact with him. "Naruto," he said in a cheery tone. As if nothing was wrong, as if the world was still sane, as if this wasn't the last time she could be seeing her sensei. "Don't take everything too serious, don't forget to have fun."

She wanted to ask what he meant, because his words made absolutely no sense, but the man's attention already moved to his other student.

Sasuke stared back, expression blank and stoic as ever. It scrunched up into reluctant frown, however, when Kakashi offered him the same smile as he did Naruto moments ago. Ultimately, he rolled his eyes before giving a curt nod of acknowledgment.

More than anyone could have expected from the Uchiha.

Minato put a hand on Kakashi's shoulder and squeezed it lightly. Support, apology, and farewell, all wrapped up in that one simple action.

It felt so final. Naruto shuddered at the thought. Sasuke's hold on her tightened in a mute comfort.

Minato gripped Sasuke by his arm and looked at his silver-haired student again.

"Go!" Kakashi commanded as the air behind him distorted. Ripples spread to the side from the single focal point, the dark figure slowly swirling into existence.

"N-no!" Naruto screamed and desperately reached for her sensei, fingertips about to brush across his vest, "wait—!" only to grasp on an empty air in the end when surroundings abruptly changed.

Instead of the dark cave, they stood somewhere in the middle of plains. As far as eyes could see, there was nothing here, only grass swaying in the wind with occasional small, sturdy trees scattered across and grand mountains lurking in the distance at one side.

Sasuke swept the area, Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan taking all of it in, not leaving a single detail unnoticed. "Plenty of space. Good," he muttered under his breath. His gaze settled back at Naruto for one long moment as if trying to etch her countenance into his memory.

Sasuke put the girl down in the grass, every move clearly calculated to cause as little discomfort to her as possible. His eyes seemed to pause on her face again, but didn't linger. The next moment, he was already rising back to his feet.

Minato observed them, expression grim. The sort a person got when he was full of regrets, but knowing that there was no other choice.

Naruto didn't like it. Not one bit. Her hand shot out to grab onto Sasuke all on its own.

The Uchiha looked down at her. The hard lines of his face mellowed down and eyes softened. They always did. Always just for her.

Sasuke crouched down, prying Naruto's fingers from his clothes and taking her palm between his. He asked, "Do you remember the day we went on a date?"

The redhead swallowed the giant lump of 'not him too'. "You said it wasn't a date, 'ttebane," she mumbled, almost pouting. Damn Uchiha.

The corner of his lips did that thing it did when Sasuke aimed to be particularly grating on her nerves. "I lied." He pressed Naruto's hand to his chest with one of his own; another cupped her face, thumb stroking her whiskered cheek. "I'm sorry, Naruto," he said quietly, the words flowing out with a weathered tenderness. He poked her forehead then. "It seems there won't be the next time."

This was it, Naruto could tell. Her friend's voice was layered with an undeniable final tone that chilled the insides of her chest. "Sasuke…"

"Stop being a crybaby, Loser."

She couldn't stop the indignation rising at his old taunt and before she knew, the usual retort, "Screw you, Bastard!" already rolled off her tongue.

Sasuke hned in a way that sounded suspiciously like a smothered chuckle.

The wind carried distant voices. All three turned towards the direction where it was coming from. Dots lined up the horizon, a cloud of dust rising high into the sky behind them. Myriads of small ones and eight colossal silhouettes against the bright blue backdrop.

The young Uchiha straightened up, suddenly intense and alert, turning around to face the approaching enemy army. His fingers brushed across the sheath of his chokutō, until wrapping around its hilt. "Make it happen, Namikaze." Cold command got only amplified by the sparks of electricity discharging as the blade slowly slid out of its cage.

"I will," Minato replied, equally determined.

Unimaginable power sizzled in the air, raw and sharp, and static, making their skin rise in goosebumps. Streaks of pure white crackled around Sasuke's body and he surged forward, bringing forth a tsunami of chakra that instantly morphed into a monstrous shape of a great warrior. Susanoo reared back its giant sword, mimicking the action of its caster, and—

"Naruto."

Naruto's head snapped at her father who kneeled beside her.

"I don't have time to tell you the plan or answer your questions, so just trust me, okay?" Minato said, pleaded, as he pushed her to lay down on the ground in a careful though insistent manner. She obeyed wordlessly, despite millions of questions queuing up in her mind. "First," he blazed through the series of hand seals, "I'm going to transfer my half of the Kyuubi to you, so that he could return to his original form. It might be unpleasant in your state. Bear with it, please." After swiftly rolling the girl's shirt and mesh armor up to reveal her stomach, he placed both his hands on it.

The sudden onslaught of chakra choked the air from Naruto's lungs. It poured in like ravaging river breaking through a dam. Like a tidal wave, chakra flooded her already dangerously stretched coils and chakra pathways, fast and merciless, giving her no time to catch her breath. Some of them splintered, unable to keep with the new force, but were immediately repaired only to fracture again and again.

Naruto might have screamed, might have begged to stop. She couldn't quite recall that part, only the absolute pain. It couldn't have lasted long though, the screaming, because, by the time the transfer finished and all the foreign chakra sunk and stilled somewhere inside her, her speech could only come out in faltering gasps. Her father was by her side, stroking her hair over and over, saying it would be alright with a voice that betrayed his growing concern.

The ground underneath the duo rocked from the distant explosion. Minato looked up and his eyebrows drew together. "I'm sorry, Naruto, but we're running out of time," he murmured. He gripped the collar of Naruto's shirt, pulled it down, and with a single once-over assessed the intricate lines of the Hiraishin core seal tattooed on her skin—the true form of their infamous teleportation jutsu. Blue eyes flicked to the haggard face of his daughter, hesitant. "It will hurt again… Be prepared."

Naruto tensed. She trusted her father though. She trusted Sasuke and she trusted Kakashi-sensei. Whatever plan they devised, they wouldn't have pushed her through something like this if it wasn't worth it.

She sure hoped the plan was worth it even at this point she couldn't hazard a guess of what it could be.

Chakra ignited on the tip of Minato's fingers. He focused, brow creasing, eyes glazing over in deep concentration.

Anticipating another torture, Naruto made a conscious effort to stay still and not recoil from his touch. The tiniest mistake in modifying even the simplest formula might have ended up in a disaster. Not to mention the complex and multi-layered seal like Hiraishin, no matter how much of an expert her father was.

The pain didn't come this time. Of course, as the new lines were inscribed directly into her skin, there was a sharp tingling sensation, like hundreds of needles prickling at the same time, but nothing horrible or unbearable. Nothing she didn't already go through.

As soon as her father shook his hand, getting rid of the remaining chakra, finished with his work, a chuckle just spilled out of Naruto in a relieved huff. Minato raised his eyebrow in amused confusion, but her mirth died as fast as it emerged.

"Alright," the blond said, glancing over the seal one more time. Judging, making sure. The ground shook again. The battle drew closer now; they could hear the roars of the enslaved Bijuu.

"I need you to do one last thing for me," Minato said, heart swelling with love at the sight of those two stubborn pools of blue fixated on him, waiting. "Search for the Hiraishin mark, the farthest you can sense. It should be one way beyond the limit. I know, I know," he added sheepishly. "We should never teleport beyond the limit, but please trust me on this. Time is just as much a variable as space, bendable by seals given the right conditions and elements."

Naruto gulped and nodded, letting her father's soft tenor wash over her, but not trusting herself to speak yet. She already found the beacon he was talking about. It was far, a minuscule ping somewhere at the edges of her senses; so far away that she doubted that she could make it, but she was damned if she didn't try.

The shadow fell over them. It seemed that one of the mindless Bijuu finally slipped past Sasuke and made its way to them. None of the two ninjas looked at it though.

"I believe in you, my Little Flame," Minato uttered, voice cracking around the affectionate nickname ever so slightly. "Now, go!"

Naruto reached for that Hiraishin mark located so impossibly far.

Latched firmly onto it. Would do no good if she lost control during the travel.

Pulled herself towards it.

And Naruto Uzumaki was no more.

A/N

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