Chapter Six: The Last Seal

The world as you see it is not the world as it is. It is a shape, a form, a skein and a veil stretched over the formless shape of the truth, a shadow of smooth fabric that is what you make of it.

Logic. Imposition.

Vague dusts of providence that condense into ideas, and thus into names.

Names, spoken by people and given form by latent intentionality in the dreams of humankind.

Gods, who become their names, proxies for human hopes with the function of recreating the conditions that gave birth to them.

This is the truth of the phenomena that we call "Kami". Kami of health, to prevent plagues. Kami of rains, to prevent drought. Kami of the sun, to ensure it rises. Kami of the world, to ensure that it continues on.

Gods, worshipped by humans thus become strong. Nature, disregarded by all but the wise, frays at the seams.

Demons, reviled by humans, outside of nature, are something else altogether.

If Kami are patches on the fabric this world, the Tenma are the frays and the tears on the edges.

The world as you see it is not the world as it is.

⁌⁅⁑⁀'―‿⁂‿―'⁀⁑⁆⁍

Light beyond the concept of light lanced forth, annihilated the obsidian copy of the Ichibi, and carved a valley into the heart of the world, and Shukaku who the world was screamed.

I want you to imagine a nightmare condensed into discord, wrapped into the bubbling cough of a plague victim and their rattling breath as their body fights death without even the slightest chance of success. I want you to imagine the soft weeping of an abused child, the casual hate in the voice of their abuser. I want you to imagine the voices of your loved ones, begging you to save them and then your own horrified lamentation when you fail.

I want you to imagine the most horrifying sound you possibly can, and then, think of something worse.

That idea in your head holds not even a candle to the absolute anathema that was Shukaku's Voice.

It hurt. Even through the rage that I had become, it lanced out and empathized with me as I saw, for the smallest moment, a glimpse of the world through Shukaku's mind. And as I did, The piercing light dimmed, the over-blue sky darkened into a regular colour, and the sun collapsed into actual light, as opposed to a looming thing that you could never take your eyes off of.

More slowly, but just as inevitably, the languidly pulsing obsidian disintegrated. All of it. And, as it went, my sanity returned, the Kyuubi's chakra pulling out of my system and leaving me sore, but whole.

The message was clear: From here on out, I was on my own. And what went unsaid: The fox had, with it's attack, somehow cancelled out the unnatural properties of this world, and in doing so, had given me back my only real advantage. I wasn't going to try summoning here, but still...

I formed my fingers into a familiar cross, and an army of shadow clones blurred into existence, and stayed that way.

It was time.

Gaara, having somehow survived the apocalypse that was the Kyuubi's attack slowly walked towards me, over the gaping, melted canyon that had been cut into the ground. For my part, I substituted myself with the shadow clone furthest away from the canyon, and retreated a little bit further still. My clones tried to attack Gaara en masse, but he just walked through them like they weren't even there. Whatever it was about this world that boosted his combat abilities, the damage that the Kyuubi had done hadn't broken it.

Eventually, he made it through my army, and slowly walked down to the ground— and stopped. Ten meters separated us, but that was all.

"—you," Gaara began, "What are you?"

"I don't know if people like us have a name," I answered, "But I'm the same kind of being as you are. A human with a demon sealed inside. I told you back at the hospital, didn't I?"

Gaara took a step, and I mirrored it, circling him even as he slowly circled me, closing the distance between us one step at a time.

"A counterpart," he said, laughing slightly, "But unworthy. You don't understand anything."

"When I understood what you were," I said, slowly beginning drawing in, "I thought I had found someone like me. Who I could truly call a friend."

"Che." Gaara sneered, "As if I'd let you stab me in the back."

"I was deluded." I agreed, "After you killed Konohamaru, I knew. Between us..."

"There can be no understanding." We both said it.

I lunged at Gaara even as he lunged at me, forming a clones and substituting with them, never staying in the same place for more than a few seconds as Gaara steadily moved through a set of horribly warped, asymmetrical hand seals.

"Demonic Art: Sabaku Shura!"

And a web of the Ichibi's obsidian shot out from Gaara's body, the only place it had managed to remain intact after the Kyuubi's devastating attack. The web expanded outwards, almost touching me before it slowed to a halt, and thousands of tiny, crystalline spikes grew from it's surface. In that moment, I decided that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it, palmed an anti-demon tag, and lunged forward, connecting with the net. There was a momentary sense of... discontinuity, interruption, incompletion, and the web simply fell apart, taking good portions of Gaara's pseudo-flesh with it

"You!" I shouted, my clones shouted as I charged in through a momentary hole in his absolute defence, "Are everything I refuse to ever become!"

Gaara snarled, making a set of sharp, twisting motions with his hands and suddenly the sky grew dark— I glanced up, and the sun had eclipsed, the fiery corona surrounding it seeming to descend... kuso! It actually was descending!

And Gaara spoke. "You... Are every weakness I ever threw away."

I grabbed one of Fukusaku's sealing tags, and threw it at the sunfire— and it took some of it but not all. I grabbed the next, and threw it as well, sealing the last of the flames. Only one tag left-!

"Is kindness a weakness? Honor? Restraint⁉"

"Those things don't exist to begin with!" Gaara shouted, making several more hand gestures, "Friends only exist to stab you in the back!" Miniature Ichibi burst out of the ground, charging at me with loping, alien grace. "Enemies only breathe to stab you in the heart!" He drew to obsidian swords from nothing, and leapt into the fray himself. "By killing others, they can't kill me later!" The same obsidian armour that had covered the Ichibi in Gaara's body back in the real world burst out of Gaara skin, and he shouted, "Demonic Art! MIRAGE OF THE DESERT WIND!"

I formed the last army of clones that I had in me, drew two fuuma shuriken, and engaged.

It was a dance— All battles between two equally skilled fighters are, and I was as much an amateur at using fuuma shuriken at close range as he was with his swords. Oh yes, it was a dance, but there wasn't anything like grace in it. Just killing blow, after killing blow, after killing blow. All the while, the eclipsed sun shone down on us, like a single, titanic eye, watching as he lashed out and I parried, as my clones fought and died by the dozens to contain the small Ichibi, as he danced across the desert sands, Gaara supported by them, and I only matching him with the the last dregs of chakra that I had.

Time ceased to exist, and in a moment, in a thousand years, he lunged and I dodged, I struck and he parried, I decided to live, and live, and live, and he decided to kill me, and kill me, and kill me— and then we both lost our footing, and I tumbled to the ground, landing on top of him— and my hands found his throat, even as his hands found mine.

Then a shadow loomed over me, and I remembered a single, simple fact. I had no more Kage Bunshin.

The timelessness shattered, and in a single instant the tail of one of the small Ichibi burst into speed, it's wickedly barbed tip finding it's way into my stomach, skewering me and jerking me out of Gaara's grasp.

I coughed, weakly, and blood— my blood fell to the sand as Gaara began to laugh.

"Hehehahahahahahahahahaha— Yes. That's right." He dragged himself to his feet, his eyes bloodshot behind their obsidian visor. "Die, Uzumaki Naruto. Die, and then I'll kill your friends, then their families— then I'll destroy your village before burning this country to ashes, and from there, turning the entire world to nothing! Then I can live alone forever! Then I'll be content." He mumbled something— "...safe"

Weakly, I motioned to him to come over. Before I died, I had one last thing I needed to say. And he came, slowly, drawing it out, savouring his victory— the verification of his existence.

There were no words for how badly I had fucked this up.

"Gaara..." I whispered, as he leaned over me, completely focused on my face.

"That's not..." There were no words for how badly I had fucked this up. But...

"what it means..."

I. had. not. lost.

"TO LIVE!" I roared, and in a single fluid motion, I grabbed the final anti-demon tag, and slammed it onto his chest.

Everything went white.

-Coda-
ichibi

I was a wanderer. A nomad. A member of a tribe. We walked the desert, and we were it's heirs, inheritors of all that it was and had within it. In the millenial rhythms of our caravans and the everchanging cavalcade of faces, young that grew old, and died— I was there. Alone, unchanging. Always walking amongst and amidst the people. Sometimes, one would catch a glimpse of me, but just as often they would dismiss it as nothing.

I walked ahead. I walked behind. I discovered, and guided the eyes of scouts to those discoveries, and the people rejoiced, and celebrated each one and gave thanks to their god— a thanks I accepted, even if it wasn't meant for me.

Then, one day, another tribe.

Bodies littered the desert like the debris of a careless child. I wandered between them, crying, mourning. Swearing revenge.

And my vengeance was terrible. The other tribe was larger, and they had nothing like me within their midst. No god to save them from another. And even as I weakened, I walked among them, guiding them to thirst, leading their scouts to death, and I watched, always giving them just enough water to see the next day, but only that much. And the hunger whittled they bodies down to grotesque shells of flesh pulled taut over a frame of bones.

They died alone— every last one of them. That was the way of their people, and I made sure it was enforced even unto the last one.

And then, it was done. Devoid of a purpose now, for the very first time I did not know what to do.

The sun beat down upon me. Harsh, unforgiving.

The sky was clear.

Devoid of anything.

I had been walking, walking for so long, the slow winds behind me constantly erasing my footsteps as I climbed one dune to find only another, and another in my path.

Endlessly.

I marched, and there was no time, no place, no concept of anything but this endless, eternal hell of walking forward.

To where?

Nowhere.

Out there, in the desert, I screamed.

And it was forever.

The secondary seal glowed brilliantly white, burning itself through the obsidian armour and into Gaara's skin with a hiss. As it faded into black ink, the roar of the Shukaku's vengeance forestalled echoed across the world it had become.

And then, like a film run in reverse, holes were torn in the sky, and the ground cracked, the sand draining into a nothingness coloured blur. Somehow, I got lucky until the last second, and then, finally, I fell into that void , empty of anything, Space ceasing, Time breaking.

Then, the nothingness itself itself cracked, then shattered, giving way to the whitish colour of the more humid skies over Konoha, the final fragments of Shukaku's desert blue evicted from reality, and we fell from on high.

I can't tell you how high, but from where we were, I wouldn't even need to do any more work— the fall itself would be lethal. So, I closed my eyes, and waited. I had no strength left to me. My chakra pathways were burnt out. I couldn't save myself. But at least, Gaara was going to die.

I had done it.

I had won.

⁌⁅⁑⁀'―‿⁂‿―'⁀⁑⁆⁍

If this were a work of fiction, I would end the narrative here. It has all the makings of a fine tragedy, don't you think? The hero avenges a wrongful death, and strikes down a monster at the cost of his own life. Neat. Clean. No loose ends.

But this isn't some picture-book fairytale.

A red-green-grey blur shot out of nowhere and caught us both, taking us down to the ground. Numb with shock, I realized that it was Jiraiya. He did some kind of seal-less wind jutsu, and he both came down to a soft landing, dropping Gaara and lowering me slightly more gently. Somehow, I was alive. The hole in my chest where the Ichibi had run me through had ceased to exist.

"You did good, kid." He said, forgoing the use of his normal title for me— brat. "With the Ichibi's container incapacitated, the invasion forces have begun to withdraw. You've pretty much saved the village. As for Gaara here," He flashed me a grin, "He'll be a prisoner of war, but if all goes well, he'll be fine."

I couldn't accept it. it's only natural I couldn't accept it— Konohamaru was dead, dead, no mercy, but— Gaara would live... and he thought I'd be happy⁉

"Why..." I whispered.

Jiraiya looked surprised for a moment, then slightly scowled, "Oi, brat, you don't think we can just ignore the fact that he was an enemy soldie—"

"WHY DIDN'T YOU LET HIM DIE⁉" I shouted.

Surprise. Disappointment. Resignation. Those were the emotions that danced across Jiraiya's face in the long seconds after I had shouted him down.

"Jinchuuriki." Jiraiya said it like a curse, then flicked through three hand seals. Darkness descended upon my world, and with that, my battle against Sabaku no Gaara at long last came to an end.

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Author's Notes

Oh god, I finally finished the arc. Fucking hell yes! I'm so glad that I won't have to write another ten thousand words of fight scene for a while.

The mindfuck that was Ichibi's Coda will be explained within the next 30k words. Promise.

Moving on past comment on this chapter in particular, to the actual story itself...

I think I have two distinct modes of editing. Seriously, I edited the previous chapter, and thought it was good. Then, I looked back at it an hour later, and found out that I had made something like twenty mistakes. I've uploaded a fixed version, and I've done my best not to make the same mistake with this chapter.

roboguy45: It wasn't quite clear in the chapter, but Naruto was effectively overshadowed by the Kyuubi's mind when he did all of that insane stuff. Naruto's bloodline comes into effect in the following chapter, but it's not actually a weapon of mass destruction.