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Every 100 Power Stones = 2 Extra Chapters
Every 100 Collections = 1 Extra Chapter
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A growl of pain echoed through the air as Kurama found a weakness in the Adamantite Seals. With a terrifying crack, the mighty beast managed to free one of its claws. It was too fast. It swiped at Kushina, aiming to end everything before Minato could complete the sealing.
Minato moved, too late.
Kushina's scream tore through the air as Kurama's claw impaled her, pushing through her chest with terrifying speed. Minato's eyes widened in horror as the blood spilled, darkening the earth beneath them. He didn't hesitate—he leaped forward, throwing himself in front of her. But it was too late.
Kurama's chakra was too much. The beast's rage too uncontrollable. Kushina's body was torn, and Minato, despite his best efforts, was struck as well. His body crumpled to the ground beside her, his soul beginning to tear away from the world as the final blow was struck.
And in the midst of this chaos, Naruto, innocent and unaware, began to cry.
Kushina's eyes, glazed with pain, lifted toward the baby, her heart breaking as she whispered a final, motherly prayer, "Naruto... you have to be strong. You have to be strong for us..." She tried to reach out, but her hand fell limp, her life force fading with the blood that poured from her wound.
Minato's gaze found hers, and in that final moment, he managed to speak, though his voice was barely above a whisper. "I love you, Kushina. I always will."
Naruto cried louder, the sound piercing the empty night, a call for help.
The house was quiet—eerily so. A strange silence filled the corners of my room, interrupted only by the ticking of the wall clock and the slow exhale of the night wind rustling past my window. I had drifted into sleep with a strange unease, yet nothing had prepared me for what came next.
A baby's cry.
Sharp. Piercing. Desperate.
It wasn't just a sound—I felt it. My skin crawled, and my chest tightened as though it had reached into my reality and curled around my ribs. At first, I thought it was a dream. Then, a hallucination. But the sound came again, and again, like a rhythmic chant of grief beyond this world.
I bolted up in bed, eyes wide, scanning the dim corners of my room. There was no child. No echo. No sound at all.
And yet, I closed my eyes again—driven by a strange compulsion—and that was when I saw them.
Naruto.
Kushina.
Minato.
Kurama.
Not as characters.
As real.
Minato stood bloodied, bearing the burden of a decision carved into legend. Kushina, her crimson hair splayed across the ground like spilled ink, was forcing the last dregs of her chakra into adamantine chains, binding Kurama in place. Naruto, small and crying with a grief too old for a newborn, lay in a faint candlelit cradle. And the demon fox—monumental, furious, magnificent—thrashed against the bindings, fueled by the threat of being split in two.
The scene unfolded as though I were inside it, as though a veil had lifted and fiction was no longer fiction. I could hear Kushina gasp, "I won't allow it, Minato! He's just a baby!" And Minato's sorrowful resolve: "He's our son. He is the child of prophecy… I believe in him."
Their voices weren't lines from a script. They were pleas, the last utterances of people caught between fate and choice.
And me? I was there.
Watching.
No. Not just watching. I felt something stir within me. A memory. No—a delusion I had often entertained: that if fiction were real, I would be the one who shaped it. I would become its god.
Here it was. Naruto's world.
Alive.
Real.
And I, somehow, connected to it.
A feverish thrill rushed through my veins. My heart pounded. I closed my eyes tighter and focused. If this was truly real, then I would shape it. I imagined the Gate of the Great God—the tori gate used to bind tailed beasts. I pictured it, sculpted every line in my mind. The color, the divine aura, the thrum of power.
Nothing happened.
Kurama raged. The chains strained. Naruto screamed.
I tried again. Imagining seals, techniques, words of power I had memorized from countless readings. Nothing. Not even a flicker of change. Not a shimmer of chakra, not a whisper of intervention.
The fox broke one chain. I saw the moment his massive claw lunged forward. Minato stepped in front of Kushina, but it wasn't enough. The claw pierced both of them. It stopped just short of Naruto's tiny face.
My heart raced—not from sorrow, but frustration. Here was a moment I had fantasized about. To be a god within fiction. And all I could do was watch. I wasn't reincarnated. I wasn't a hidden player. I was merely... tethered. Voiceless. Powerless.
Naruto screamed.
Again.
And again.
The noise grated against my consciousness. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't think. His cry was raw and ceaseless—a sonorous reminder that I was nothing more than an observer. No different than before. Only now, the pain was real. His pain.
But my irritation rose, not out of empathy, but out of failure. I had dreamed of this moment. To experiment. To intervene. What good was a god if his voice echoed into a void? What purpose did power serve if it never arrived?
I watched as Minato activated the Eight Trigrams Sealing Jutsu. His hands moved swiftly, elegantly, as though even death could not hurry him. He whispered final blessings into Naruto's soul. Kushina, bloodied and barely alive, still found the strength to speak motherly advice.
Brush daily.
Eat your vegetables.
Make friends.
Don't be picky.
Remember… we love you.
The words felt weightless and warm.
But they weren't for me.
I tried to speak. I screamed inside my mind.
"Minato! Kushina! I'm here! I see you! I know what's coming!"
But they couldn't hear me.
Nothing I said mattered.
The fox's chakra settled. The Yin portion sealed inside Minato. The Yang half sealed into the crying child. The candlelight seal burned softly under Naruto's belly.
And still… Naruto cried.