Shattered Sun

Keys in your hand

Fukasaku looked at the sleeping once blond. It was a tiring day. Naruto understood the Toads' reasoning but even Fukasaku, though he's not the Toad that made that decision, felt like they had abandoned their summoner. Gamamaru had cried when Jiraiya came to him but begged the man to ask the boy to become their summoner once more.

Naruto had come to them, his face friendly and open yet distant and closed. He still accepted them, he forgiven them but he admitted that the pain of being abandoned will take a long time to heal. He smiled, "Perhaps when this is all over,"

He will call on them...but not soon.

Even the hot headed Gamabunta looked ashamed. It was clear that it was a very hard decision for either party to part from the desolate world. They all wanted to reach out to the man far from home, wanted to ease his pain but knew that he put them at a distant for a reason. The mending will come but they have to be patient.

It was the first time that it was the Toads that betrayed their summoner...

Naruto woke up early for the Final. He wore his dark clothing, his burgundy sage coat with black flames covered his frame. He had grown taller the past month. His body was growing faster than it did the first time, in part due to his chakra forcing his growth to kick start to accommodate them. Naruto had also unconsciously been using his chakra to strengthen his body. In the...other world...he had been using his chakra to stave off hunger and figured a way to feed his chakra with nothing more than the ambient chakra of the dying world.

He had no food and he refused to fall...

But now that he has access to food and water, his already mutated chakra stabilized further and made his body stronger. He scratched the side of his head and froze. He rubbed the growing boney nub there and paled. He knew what it meant to have the chakra coils of the Otsutsuki. He knew what having most of the chakra of the other Bijuu, no matter how small will lead to. He knew what having the inherited Yang chakra of Rikudou Sennin meant.

He's a pseudo Juubi Jinchuuriki.

He has Otsutsuki Chakra.

He gripped his hand in a fist. He breathed in and Kurama rumbled within, "You're still you,"

It will only evolve further the stronger he gets, won't it?

Naruto's lips stretched into a feral grin, "I won't let it be the same this time. This time, I will make sure Zetsu fall...permanently,"

He still recalled his debate with Nagato regarding the cycle of hatred and peace. He still believed in what he had done. But he knew that it cannot be applied to the likes of Zetsu. A single minded drive to destroy humanity as a whole without prejudice, how do you reason with something like that? One simply do not reason with the shadow. It simply exist. It has no other reason or purpose.

That's Zetsu.

It has a single purpose and when that was taken from it, it sought only to destroy even if in the end it destroyed itself.

Does Naruto hate Zetsu? A few years ago he would have screamed yes without hesitation. But he's tired. Hating something was too tiring. He had lost too much, sacrificed too much to lost himself to hatred. It has now become a matter of duty.

Naruto looked up and realized that his feet had taken him to a familiar training ground. He recalled that this was where he confessed his fear of losing to Hinata. She told him something that he held in his heart. She called him a proud failure. Whenever he wavered, she was there to show him the way. His little spot of sunlight in the uncertain darkness.

He stared at her back.

He wanted to call out to her.

But his feet refused to move. She turned and he wanted to bolt, to run but in the end he was on his knees, throat choking as he silently shed tears. She looked at him in worry, "N-Naruto-kun?!"