There was a time when his world knew peace.
Centauria was not a world of conquerors or tyrants. It was a place of balance.
Where massive green trees stretched toward twin suns, and rivers sparkled with clear and pristine waters. Where warriors were not raised to wage war, but to protect harmony and keep peace. And at the heart of this world stood its crown jewel: Princess Kushina, High Priestess of Centauria.
And beside her, a boy with wild golden hair and eyes like the oceans.
Naruto Uzumaki, born of royal blood but branded a bastard prince. He was the son of Thragg, the butcher of planets. A father he had never met. A father he never wanted to meet.
He had never asked for this.
He had grown up surrounded by song and silence, by steel and spirit. The elders had told him he was different, that Natural Energy stirred in him even before it was awakened. But they also told him that difference was not a curse.
They lied to him.
The Viltrumites came on the day the stars turned dark.
He remembered the sky cracking open like glass, the air burning, the gravity buckling. He remembered the first punch, and the way the ground exploded, the way his people screamed. He remembered watching warriors who had raised him, bled for him, died valiantly in battle with the Viltrumites..
And most of all, he remembered her.
His mother's hand, trembling, on his chest. Her voice, whispering the names of every ancestor that had ever wielded Natural Energy before her. Her energy flowing into him like molten fire, ancient and divine.
"You are the last flame of Centauria," she said. "And we will live on inside of you."
Then she died in his arms.
And the boy became a maelstrom.
He didn't know how long it lasted. Minutes? Hours? Years? They broke under his fury. The Viltrumites, all four of them, withered under his fury. Their bones shattered, their lungs burst. He didn't remember killing them.
Only the silence after.
Charred soil. Cracked moons. Smoke trailing into a hollow sky. The boy who wanted peace stood alone among the ashes.
It had took him a week to bury the dead. Over a thousand graves, marked with stones, prayers, and broken promises.
Then, he left.
No goodbyes. No vengeance.
Just silence.
And Earth.
SIX MONTHS LATER
"Name?"
He blinked, adjusting the hoodie over his face. "Naruto."
The school secretary tapped something on her screen. "Last name?"
"…Uzumaki."
"Age?"
"Sixteen." He lied easily.
"Legal guardian?"
"…deceased."
She paused, eyes flicking toward him. "I see. Well, you're assigned to homeroom 3-B. Try not to get into too much trouble, alright?"
He nodded silently, grabbing his student packet and leaving the room.
There were no sapphire rivers here. No towering roots that cradled the sky. No songbirds with glass wings. Just rust-stained lockers, the smell of stale disinfectant, and kids pretending not to stare.
Naruto walked through the hall like fog through a battlefield. Silent. Untouchable. Every footstep echoed louder than it should have. Girls whispered. Boys pointed. Some smirked. A few looked at him like he was prey. Or a problem. Maybe both.
He kept his hood up.
Because this was supposed to be peace.
Not training. Not survival. Not the aching silence that came after screams.
He was just a kid now. Seventeen. Technically. A transfer student with nothing but a forged birth certificate, a backpack full of notebooks, and powers that could tear this school in half if he ever let them speak.
And that was the plan. Don't let them speak.
He could almost believe in the illusion. Almost.
Until someone got in his way.
"Watch it, freak."
Naruto blinked, looking up. A kid with bleached hair and linebacker shoulders blocked his path. Letterman jacket. Varsity smugness.
Naruto hadn't even felt the collision. The other kid had bounced off him like a tennis ball off a concrete wall.
The jock shoved him again, harder this time.
"I said, watch it."
For a split second, Natural Energy stirred. A silent pressure that coiled up his spine and flexed beneath his skin like coals catching fire.
His eyes changed. Not visibly. Not yet. But the weight behind them shifted.
The bully took a step back. Just one. Instinct, maybe.
Naruto offered a thin smile.
"I didn't see you," he said, voice calm. "Sorry."
He walked past like nothing had happened. The silence that followed dragged behind him like a cape.
He stepped into his classroom just as the bell rang.
The teacher barely looked up. "Ah. New student. Naruto Uzumaki. Don't bite, he's already housebroken."
Scattered laughter. A few bored glances.
Naruto found the seat by the window. Always the window. Always some instinct buried deep telling him to sit where he could see the sky. Even if this one was pale and weak and Earth-colored.
Even if it felt nothing like the twin suns of Centauria that used to paint his skin gold.
The chair creaked under his weight. Not because he was heavy. Because he wasn't normal.
He glanced down at his hand. The fingers looked human enough. But they weren't. Not really. Natural Energy curled in his bones like a second soul, like something alive and ancient and half-starved for release. A sleeping god waiting for an excuse.
He hadn't used it since the day Centauria burned.
He wasn't going to. Not here. Not again.
"Yo."
Naruto blinked.
A boy had slid into the seat beside him. Tan skin, dark hair, a dorky grin that somehow made it all work.
"I'm Mark. Mark Grayson. You new?"
Naruto gave a short nod. "Yeah. Just moved."
Mark looked genuinely interested. "Welcome to Reginald Vel Johnson High, where dreams go to die and the vending machines only eat your money on Tuesdays."
Naruto raised an eyebrow.
Mark leaned in like they were swapping top-secret information. "You really didn't hear? Omni-Man's kid just got his powers. Blew up half the track field last week."
Naruto frowned. The name rang a bell. Earth's 'greatest hero.' Viltrumite. The same species as…
He didn't finish the thought.
"Not big on cape gossip," Naruto muttered.
Mark laughed. "Yeah, I get it. But hey it makes school more interesting, right?"
Naruto didn't answer. He just glanced at the window again.
Mark didn't seem to mind the silence. He extended a hand anyway. "If you need someone to show you around or whatever. I'm usually not this social, but you looked like you could use a guide."
Naruto stared at the hand.
There was no calculation behind it. No fear. No suspicion. Just a simple human offer. A human kindness.
He shook it.
It felt warm.
For a moment, he remembered Kushina's hands. The way she held him when he couldn't stop shaking. Before the sky split open. Before the blood. Before the screams.
"Thanks," Naruto said quietly.
Class began. The teacher droned. Pens scratched. People passed notes.
Naruto sat still.
He tried to listen. Tried to be present. Tried to just... exist.
But the desk groaned under him again. A small sound. A tiny reminder that even here, even now, he wasn't like them.
He wasn't human.
He wasn't normal.
He was just trying to pretend.
After school, he walked home. Alone.
The city buzzed with life, but it all felt far away. The cars, the chatter, the horns and footsteps just felt like noise with no meaning. Each sound blurred into the next, and he moved through it like a ghost, head down, hands in his pockets. A sense of heaviness clung to his soul, like soaked fabric he couldn't tear off.
His apartment sat at the edge of a quiet neighborhood, tucked between a shuttered laundromat and a corner store that smelled perpetually of cigarettes and old floor wax. The building itself looked like it had seen better decades. Cracked brick, rusted railings, and an elevator that hadn't worked in years. Naruto didn't mind the stairs.
Third floor. End of the hall. Apartment 3C.
He unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The air was still. Not musty but just still. Like even time forgot to move in here.
The apartment was a small, one-bedroom unit. A creaky old futon folded in the corner of the main room. A tiny kitchenette, barely large enough to fit one person. A mini-fridge, humming softly, filled with bottled water, energy drinks, and half a dozen forgotten containers of takeout. And in the pantry was instant noodles. Stacks and stacks of Nisio Ramen in bulk packs, shoved wherever they would fit.
It wasn't even the good kind.
He didn't bother with flavor variety. Just beef. Always beef.
No one was there to cook for him. And with no one to eat with. Cooking felt… unnecessary. Too slow. Too quiet. And he hated the silence.
A small table sat near the window, legs slightly uneven, wobbling if he leaned too hard. A single chair accompanied it, scraped and nicked from previous tenants. On the windowsill: a tiny plant in a chipped clay pot. He didn't know what kind it was. A clerk had said it was "low maintenance." It hadn't died yet, which he took as a small win.
The walls were bare, stained with faded outlines of where other people once hung pictures. There was no TV. Just a lamp, a second-hand alarm clock, and a duffel bag of clothes he barely bothered to unpack.
But it was his.
The air wasn't fresh, and the heater barely worked, but it was quiet. No echoes of the dead in the hallways.
And for Naruto Uzumaki… it was enough.
At least for now.
He dropped his bag near the door and peeled off his hoodie. The floor creaked under his feet as he made his way to the counter, tore open another pack of ramen, and set water to boil.
He stared at the stove, eyes distant, hands still.
Then...
BOOM.
The sky cracked.
A deep, distant roar echoed across the city, low and terrible. The windows rattled in their frames. His bowl trembled on the counter. His ramen, untouched, sloshed slightly in the pot.
Naruto didn't flinch.
He turned toward the sound, the ghost of a sigh leaving his lips.
So much for peace.
___
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