Chapter 9 – The Last Strike
The void trembled.
Naruto's golden Tenseigan blazed like a newborn sun. Sasuke's twin Rinnegan spun with the fury of storms that had raged for eternity. Behind them, the light of the dead — Boruto, Sarada, Kawaki, and countless others — streamed into their bodies like rivers of fire.
Their feet struck the air. The final charge began.
Shukuyomi's third eye flared, a star collapsing into darkness. His voice thundered through the collapsing dimension.
"You think this will end me? I have seen your deaths more times than you can imagine."
But as their chakra surged, something unexpected happened.
The air between them shimmered — and then shattered.
Naruto blinked. The battlefield was gone.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Tch… this again."
They stood in a world of white sand under a blood-red sky. In the distance, three figures walked side-by-side — Naruto, Sasuke, and Shukuyomi, younger, unscarred, laughing as if the universe itself belonged to them. No war. No hatred. Only brotherhood.
A voice — Shukuyomi's — not as a god, but as a man.
"We will protect this world together. Always."
The memory shifted. The laughter was gone. Shukuyomi stood at the edge of a dark rift, its whispers clawing at the air. Naruto reached for him.
"Don't go. Whatever's in there… it's not worth it."
But Shukuyomi only smiled faintly.
"I have to know."
He stepped into the void.
The sky shattered again — and the next memory slammed into them. Shukuyomi returned… but his eyes were no longer the same. His skin carried the moving constellations, and his voice was colder.
"This world… is flawed. It must be remade."
Naruto's past self took a step forward.
"We can fix it together!"
Sasuke's past self drew his blade. "Don't make us your enemy."
Shukuyomi's answer was swift — a strike through them both. Blood on the white sand.
And then another lifetime. Another fight.
Again, they fell.
Lifetime after lifetime flashed — Shukuyomi killing them, them rising again in some distant age to try once more. They had died at his hand more times than they could count. And yet… every time, they still reached for him.
Then came the strangest memory.
A battle in the same white desert… but this time, Naruto and Sasuke were gone. No corpses. No traces. Just an endless horizon, and Shukuyomi standing alone, calling their names until his voice broke.
The vision faded.
The three of them stood together in the present battlefield now — but the air between them was heavy with unspoken truth. Naruto's voice was quiet.
"Shukuyomi… we could have been brothers forever."
Sasuke's tone was flat, but his eyes held something almost human.
"This is the last time."
For the first time, Shukuyomi's gaze softened.
"…I know."
The moment shattered into motion.
Naruto roared, Tenseigan flaring into blinding gold. Sasuke's Rinnegan cut the air into ribbons of black lightning. Their combined strike — light and darkness — pierced straight through Shukuyomi's chest.
The god staggered. Golden-black blood spilled, evaporating into stardust. His voice was almost a whisper.
"In another life… maybe I would have stayed."
He smiled — not as a god, but as the friend they once knew — before his body dissolved into countless drifting lights, fading into the void.
Naruto and Sasuke barely had time to breathe. The Samsara of Life was already burning through them, their forms breaking apart as life returned to every soul that had fallen. Across the world, the dead awoke with tears in their eyes.
Boruto, Sarada, and Kawaki were on their knees, watching as their mentors' bodies turned to light.
Boruto shouted, voice cracking. "Dad—!"
Naruto smiled faintly. "Take care of them… all of them."
Sasuke glanced at Boruto, then Sarada. "Don't waste the peace we bought."
And then — like Shukuyomi — they were gone.
The battlefield was silent. Only the drifting starlight remained.
---