The sound of the wind was all that remained.
The sirens, the screams, and the cacophony of chaos had been devoured by a thick cloud of dust and fire that smothered the entire city.
Among the wreckage of what was once an ordinary street, a young man ran with bloodied hands and smoke-filled lungs. His body trembled, not from fear, but from utter exhaustion. The explosion had collapsed half the city block, and people still lay trapped under the concrete.
"Come on… come on…" he whispered between ragged gasps, dragging aside pieces of a support beam that blocked his path.
Two little girls wept beneath a collapsed structure, their eyes clouded with dust and terror.
He didn't think. There was no time to think.
He pushed with all his might. His back creaked in protest. His breath hitched.
And just as the final block shifted enough, one of the girls scrambled free. The other crawled out after her.
He smiled. For a single, fleeting moment, he smiled.
Then the ground shook again.
A new shockwave hit him like an invisible fist. The world turned white.
The heat enveloped him completely, and the last image he saw was the two small figures running toward the light, while he was consumed by the fire.
Silence.
Only silence.
There was no pain, no weight, no time. Only an absurd calm, a void in which his mind drifted without direction.
Is this what dying feels like? he thought.
His voice made no sound, yet his consciousness remained intact, trapped in a space that belonged to nothing.
Images of his life flashed by: his room, the Naruto and Bleach posters on the walls, the endless nights in front of a screen watching battles that made him forget the emptiness devouring him from within.
He had been through so much.
Depression, loneliness, the invisible weight of a world that seemed to have no need for him. But in those stories, he had found refuge, meaning, strength.
Naruto… the rejected boy who never gave up.
That was his beacon. His hope.
And now, without knowing how, he felt the universe had answered.
A voice whispered in his mind, distant, as if speaking from the depths of an ocean:
"Awaken."
His body slammed back into existence, as if gravity had reclaimed him. He felt cold, dampness, and the smell of wet earth.
The air burned his lungs. He coughed violently, opening his eyes for the first time.
The sky was choked with dark, bruised clouds. Around him, tall, twisted trees swayed in a harsh wind.
The ground beneath him was mud and gnarled roots. And on his arm… were bandages.
"What…?" he croaked, his voice a stranger's.
He brought a hand to his chest. It beat.
His heart was beating.
His fingers were different. Thinner. His skin, paler. And when he tried to stand, something at his hip jingled: a small pouch of ninja tools.
"It can't be…"
His thoughts tripped over one another.
He looked down and saw his distorted reflection in a puddle.
Messy, dark hair. A forehead protector with a symbol he didn't immediately recognize: a musical note etched into the metal.
And eyes… eyes that shone with a faint, violet luminescence, as if the very energy of his soul had been rewritten.
The wind carried distant murmurs. Human voices.
"Hurry! Lord Orochimaru is waiting for us."
The name crashed into his mind like a physical blow.
Orochimaru.
The Sound.
The Chunin Exams.
His breath caught in his throat.
He knew exactly which point in the world he had awakened into. He knew what was coming: the invasion, the destruction, the bloodshed.
And yet, amidst the confusion and fear, a different sensation began to germinate deep within him.
It wasn't terror.
It was purpose.
For the first time in a long time, he felt destiny had offered him a second chance.
But this time, not as a spectator behind a screen…
but as part of the world he had so dearly loved.
And from the depths of his chest, a thought resonated with the force of an unbreakable vow:
"This time… I will not live to escape. This time, I will change my story."
The young man of Sound raised his gaze to the gloomy forest.
The life he had lost ended in fire.
The new one… had just begun among the shadows.