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A dark storm raged over Konoha with rain falling in heavy sheets like the heaven itself had something to grieve.
In the village cemetery, a small group of people who had known and cared about Naruto Uzumaki gathered around an empty grave.
Shinobi who died in the field had there names carved into the Memorial Stone. The village's acknowledgment that their bodies belonged to the earth wherever they had fallen. Only those recovered were given burial grounds.
Naruto had no body to recover.
But the people gathered had pooled what they had, and bought him a grave Konoha anyway.
If the village could not accept him in life, it could at least hold him in death.
The first to approach were Teuchi and Ayame.
The only two civilians in the group. Everyone present understood what these two had been to the boy. They placed an offering at the base of the grave together.
A bowl of miso ramen.
Konoha's traditional belief held that the spirits of the dead partook of the spiritual essence of food left for them.
They hoped that wherever Naruto was, he got to taste of his favourite.
Teuchi stood in front of the stone for a long time before he found words.
"Hey, kid." His voice came out rough at the edges. "I still can't believe it." He pressed his lips together. "It was just yesterday you were the size of my ramen bowl when you first walked into the shop. Remember that rainy day? You barely had enough money."
He couldn't continue as tears poured out.
Ayame stepped forward when her father couldn't continue. She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. The way Naruto would have done. Because if she was going to say goodbye to him then she was going to do it in his language.
"Watch over me from the pure lands, brat," she said. Her voice held for most of it. "I'm going to open that restaurant I told you about." The tears started despite the chin staying up. "We had that deal, remember. You were supposed to be my first customer. I promised to always give you a family discount." She exhaled, a sound that was trying not to become a sob. "Guess we can't keep that one."
The chin came down.
Ayame covered her face with both hands.
Teuchi pulled his daughter against his side and held her there until they crouched and placed the bowl at the base of the headstone:
Here Lies Naruto Uzumaki.
A Dreamer.
A Warrior.
A Friend.
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"N-no, big bro." Konohamaru's small fists balled so tight at his sides that his knuckles had gone white. "You can't die. You're supposed to become Hokage. You promised to f-fight me for the hokage title."
His voice cracked completely on the last word and dissolved into sobs that bent him forward.
"You promised... You promised, big bro... You can't... you can't just..."
Iruka pulled the boy against his side, staying strong. But the Academy instructor had felt like a piece of him had been ripped out the moment the news reached him.
Naruto was MIA.
Iruka had spent the following weeks waiting for the news: For Naruto to show up injured but loudly indignant about being declared dead. That was how it should've went.
But the funeral had come, and Naruto had not.
Iruka couldn't stop himself from wondering if he could've saved the boy. If he had pushed harder during those Academy years instead of letting the boy's antics slide more often than he should've. If he had drilled the fundamentals into him with the same severity he applied to students who actually had families checking their homework. Would Naruto have had a stronger foundation? Would that have been the difference between coming home from this mission and not?
I failed you, Naruto.
The chunin held himself up for the kids. But the moment he got home, iruka would break down.
I'm sorry. I should have given you more. I should have tried harder.
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Moegi and Udon stood close together, crying.
Naruto had been something to aspire toward for kids like them. They had lost a hero they'd never gotten to properly know.
But the genin standing closer to the grave had lost something else.
A friend.
A rival.
A constant, irritating, stubborn presence that had somehow become load-bearing in their lives without anyone quite noticing when that happened.
Kiba stood with his arms wrapped around the pup pressed tightly against his chest. Akamaru hadn't eaten properly in weeks. He had become a lethargic shadow of himself. Letting out low continuous whines that didn't stop even when Kiba held him.
The grief of losing a friend expressing itself in the only language a dog had for it.
Kiba's own grief had curdled into fury.
Anger directed at Sasuke, at the mission assignment, at the entire situation... at himself. If he had been stronger against Sakon and Ukon. If he didn't get Kankuro's help... maybe the puppet guy would've gone to help Naruto. And maybe things would have gone differently. Maybe Naruto would be standing here mocking everyone's tears right now instead of being the reason.
Yet the anger couldn't hide his sadness.
Kiba had respected Naruto as a rival. He had told everyone who'd listen that Naruto's win against him in the Chunin Exams had been a fluke. But watching Naruto fight Neji had helped him understand.
The loud idiot from the Academy had become someone who could put money where his mouth was. Kiba had started training harder because of the chunin exams.
"Is this really where you stopped?" Kiba muttered. "What happened to showing everyone that they are wrong? What happened to becoming the greatest Hokage?"
He didn't bother wiping his face. The rain was already doing that for him. It gave him an excuse to cry. Yet somewhere underneath the grief, a low growl built in his throat without his permission.
He was going to rip apart Sasuke Uchiha limb from limb.
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Shino stood near the back, rain collecting on the dark lenses of his glasses.
He hadn"t known Naruto all that well. Their interactions across the Academy years and the months as genin had been minimal. By any reasonable accounting, Shino had less reason to grieve than most of the people present.
But an understanding dawned on him just now.
People avoided Naruto for reasons that predated any actual failing of his own. The same way people avoided the Aburame.
Shino suspected that Naruto had spent his life experiencing something structurally identical but for entirely different reasons. And in this shared experience constituted a form of kinship neither of them had ever formed.
That was an interesting realization to arrive at during a funeral.
His logical faculties processed the available data without difficulty.
No body had been recovered.
Shino focused on the fact of Orochimaru's documented interest in unusual genetic and biological specimens. It wasn't implausible that Sasuke had transported the an injured naruto rather than killling them.
This was a hypothesis built on absence of evidence rather than presence of evidence.
Shino was aware that this made it methodologically weak. He continued to consider it anyway.
Is this what grief feels like?
This emotion that refuses to accept the logical reality.
The aburame looked at the portrait propped near the grave. A photograph of Naruto grinning without a care in the world.
Shino wondered, whether Naruto had considered him a friend.
Whether it's for the village's benefit or my own selfish desires. I hope that Naruto's alive. Either way, Sasuke Uchiha will make sure you pay for your actions.
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Tenten didn't feel the loss of a friend, exactly. She had never known Naruto beyond his actions and the stories that filtered back through the rumor network. What she felt instead was the loss radiating outward from the people around her.
She would remember him as a fellow shinobi. Someone who had done the job and paid the price the job most times asked for. That felt like the honest and respectful way to hold it.
For Neji, it was a different story.
An arrow had gone through his weeks days earlier. The physical pain was nothing next to what he was feeling.
The young Hyuga had built his entire understanding of the world around the idea that a person's worth was fixed before birth. Naruto had been the first to crack those ideals. But now Neji stood wondering, if it was fate.
If fate had simply decided this was where the Naruto's story ended.
He hated that the thought had occurred to him.
He wasn't good at grief. He never had been. When his mother died, his father called it fate. When his father died, Neji had reached for the same word. It was the only tool anyone had ever handed him for this. Fate took his father. Fate decided everything before he had any say.
Now Naruto.
Fate was something Neji could blame without ever having to sit with it. Without ever having to ask if anyone could have done something different. That was the appeal of it. That was also the cowardice of it.
His hands were shaking.
"I don't care what fate has in store for you, Sasuke Uchiha. Mark my words. I will make it my fate to kill you."
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Rock Lee had tears and snot streaming freely down his face.
Naruto had been a friend. More than that, he had been proof, that the underdog narrative wasn't just something Gai-sensei said to make Lee feel better. Naruto had beaten Neji. Naruto had taken the fate that Lee himself struggled against every single day and proven that it could be broken.
Now he was gone.
Lee felt the anger building in his chest the same way everyone else's. Unlike them he stepped forward, and yelled with every ounce of volume his lungs possessed.
"NARUTO-SAN! I PROMISE THAT I WILL BRING SASUKE BACK TO THE VILLAGE, JUST LIKE YOU WANTED!"
For a moment the entire cemetery seemed to hold its breath around him. Some understood what he meant. The desire to honor what Naruto would have wanted rather than what grief was demanding. Still, the majority of the faces turned toward him with disbelief. Most of the people standing in that cemetery didn't want Sasuke brought back. They wanted him dead.
Lee didn't wait to gauge the reaction. He pressed his palms together for a brief, silent prayer at the grave. The bowlcut boy turned and sprinted off into the rain to begin training. Grief that didn't move into action was grief that curdled, and Lee refused to let that happen to him.
Hinata watched him go and clicked her tongue, sharp and bitter.
"Sasuke should be brought back in an urn."
She said it loud enough for the whole gathering to hear. Hinata didn't want Sasuke brought back in a coffin. She wanted him reduced to ash and thrown into the public toilet.
"That's a little much," Ino said, glancing over at her.
"Of course you'd want the traitor brought back alive." Hinata's eyes cut toward her. There was a dare in the look. An invitation for Ino to push back if she wanted a gentle fist to her throat.
Something had broken in Hinata.
The fury she felt toward anything associated with Sasuke had burned away whatever was left of her instinct. To shrink, apologize and disappear into the corners of a room.
Her shyness had been a chain for years.
If only she had found the courage to actually speak to him in the Academy instead of watching from across the room. If only she had the strength to stand beside him instead of behind him. If only she had found some way to be there when it mattered. Maybe this all wouldn't have happened at all.
The hypotheticals piled up one after the other.
Hinata had madeup her mind.
She was done being the girl who only watch. She was going to grow into someone who could stand in a room and be seen. The way Naruto had always been; loud, stubborn and impossible to ignore. That was how she would carry his memory forward.
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"Let's not fight," Choji said quietly. "Not today."
Ino's pride wasn't gonna let Hinata of all people walk all over her. But the moment she actually looked at Choji the argument dissolved.
He had lost weight to the point of being more skin and bones than fat. Since the MIA announcement, the boy who had always found comfort in food had stopped finding comfort in anything. The Konoha genjn had put their bodies on the line together. But coming back to find one of their own number gone, had delivered a kind of reality check that no book prepared you for.
For Choji it stressed out the boy to no end.
If Naruto could be gone, then so could Ino. Asuma-sensei. And Shikamaru. He had started running the funerals in his head. Trying to find out if he could survive them.
He didn't think he could.
So, to stop it. He was gonna get strong enough that the people he loved didn't.
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Death had a profound psychological effect on people. Ino knew this academically, as her clan's entire craft built around the understanding the mind of others.
Experiencing it firsthand was something else entirely.
Naruto had always been an acquaintance at best. Sakura's teammate. Sasuke's self-proclaimed rival. The loud idiot who made her laugh once in a while against her better judgment.
She had never considered him a friend.
And yet.
His death had moved through the people around her like a current.
She felt sad since she still knew the guy.
If she was being honest, Ino never actually thought Naruto could die. He was just that kind of guy. Someone that existed soley to prove everyone wrong. Logically he had been the weakest genin in their class. Practically he had spent the past year surpassing everyone. She looked forward to watching him keep doing that. To seeing how far he would go.
Then came the news of Sasuke killing Naruto.
The image she had of him for years. The cool detached badboy. A prodigy. A genius. A handsome guy. It had all been replaced by the image of a killer. A traitor. Someone who looked at a teammate trying to bring him home and killed them... for what?
Why did I sacrifice so much for such a guy?
She had broken her friendships around a boy who had walked away from his. She had measured herself against Sakura for years over someone who had ultimately decided that none of it meant anything to him.
She was done doing that.
Going forward, she was going to live for herself.
Thank you for helping me see that, Naruto. I'm sorry I never bothered to be your friend.
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"You're going to miss the funeral," Asuma said.
Shikamaru didn't answer. He was lying on the park veranda with his back against the wet wood.
"It's too troublesome."
Asuma knew this wasn't the young nara's usual laziness. Rather it was indicative of something that had been sitting in the boy since the mission went wrong.
"Troublesome because you think people are going to blame you?"
Shikamaru said nothing.
Asuma sat down on the edge of the veranda and let the silence hold for a while. "Shikamaru. It wasn't your fault."
"I've heard a lot of things in the past few days. From Temari. From my father. From Lady Tsunade." He paused. "When I heard that Choji and Neji were stable, I was relieved. I made a vow to myself that the next mission I led would be different. That I wouldn't bring anyone home in worse condition than they left."
"That's a healthy way to think about it," Asuma said.
"I waited for news that Naruto had been captured." Shikamaru said it quietly, like a confession he had rehearsed. "We found no body. The rain had washed away the trail. I told myself. I convinced myself, that kidnapping was the answer. That Sasuke couldn't have killed him."
"But then they announced he was dead."
"Yes." Shikamaru's eyes stayed on the ceiling. "And I keep thinking about how. I keep running the variables, looking for the thing I missed."
"Yes."
"Naruto would be glad to know people cared for him that deeply."
Both shinobi turned to find Jiraiya seated on the far edge of the veranda, his white hair damp, and his broad frame folded into an uncharacteristic slouchness.
"Jiraiya-sama." Asuma and Shikamaru both moved to bow.
"None of that."
"What are you doing here?" Asuma asked.
"Waiting for the funeral to empty out so I can go to the grave alone." Jiraiya turned the large sake gourd in his hands. "I owe the kid an apology. I owe his parents an apology." He exhaled slowly through his nose. "Minato and Kushina trusted me. And I spent too much of that time somewhere other than here."
He didn't say it with the drama of self-flagellation.
"I have lost a lot of people across a long life," he said. "Teacher. Students. Friends. People I loved, failed or both at the same time. You would think that experience makes it easier." He turned the gourd once more. "It doesn't make it easier. What it does is teach you not to waste the part that comes after. The grief doesn't go anywhere. You just learn to carry it alongside you rather than letting it be the only thing you are."
Shikamaru shifted against the wet wood. "Jiraiya-sama. Why has Konoha declared Naruto dead? Shouldn't the official status be missing in action?"
"I know it's hard, kid."
"I want answers," Shikamaru asked. "Please."
"Naruto signed a summoning contract with the toads of Mount Myoboku. The nature of that kind of contract creates a connection that runs in both directions. When he was reported missing in action, I had Lord Fukasaku attempt a reverse summoning through the contract seal... It didn't work."
"Orochimaru could've kept him locked in a barrier."
"That was the first possibility we examined. But the chakra tethering Naruto to the toads was gone. That can only happen when the summoner is dead."
The last hope that Shikamaru had died as he cried subconciously.
Asuma put a hand on the back of his student. The nara was trying to make out something but only tears and cries came out.
All three of them sat with the particular awfulness of a world that had just become smaller than it was before.
Jiraiya looked out at the sky.
The stormclouds were beginning to separate at the edges. A thin line of pale light working its way through the grey.
In the toad sage understanding, death wasn't an ending so much as a return. The self was a river, that would became the ocean. Everything that Naruto had been: the courage, the refusal, and the love he had carried for people who had spent years giving him nothing in return. It had flowed outward into the world and into the people standing at his grave right now. It would continue flowing long after the name on the headstone had been worn smooth by weather.
Impermanence was not cruelty.
You love people even if you would lose them. You tried because there was a limit on the trying. The sage didn"t grieve the setting of the sun. The sage understood that the sun had spent everything it had on the day. That was what a sun was supposed to do.
Naruto had spent everything he had.
Wherever you are in the Pure Land, kid, Jiraiya thought, watching the light push through the grey. I hope it's somewhere good. I hope it's somewhere loud. I hope there's ramen.
He reached for the sake gourd and held it without drinking.
I'm sorry I wasn't there more. I'm sorry I left too much to later. I'm going to spend the rest of my life making sure what you were doesn't disappear from this world.
That's a promise. From your godfather. Late as always.
The light in the sky widened and held.
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People filtered out of the cementery in ones and twos until there was nothing left but the remaining members of team 7.
"How do you feel?" Kakashi asked.
Sakura stood silent with her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes fixed on the portrait propped in front of the headstone. The pink hair was plastered flat against her face from the rain. Her eyes were the red of someone who had been crying for days.
"I want this nightmare to end," she said in a weak voice.
The guilt had been living in Sakura's chest since the night Sasuke left.
She had been the one to ask Naruto to bring Sasuke back. She had put a burden beyond the mission in his hands and that seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back.
If she had been stronger, she wouldn't have needed to ask at all.
She had stood in front of Sasuke the night he tried to leave. She had offered to come with him, as though the problem was that he was lonely rather than that he was choosing something she couldn't understand.
"It should have been me," she said. "I should have been the one to go after him. I was the one who asked. I should have been the one to follow through."
"Sakura."
"I'm not finished." Her voice tightened. "I know what you're going to say. I've heard it from my mother, Ino and myself. And none of it changes what I keep coming back to. Naruto went because I asked him to and now he's dead."
"So, what are you going to do about it?"
Sakura blinked. "What?"
"Naruto is dead. Sasuke is gone." Kakashi stated bluntly. "So what comes next for you. Are you going to spend the next few years chasing Sasuke down to avenge him? Or are you going to drag the Uchiha back like Naruto?"
Sakura looked at the portrait for a long moment.
"Neither," she said.
"..."
"I'm done letting Sasuke be the center of anything." The words came out steadily. "I'm not going to let him dictate the direction of my life. Not through grief or anger or whatever comes."
Sakura glanced at Kakashi.
"I want to become stronger. Strong enough that I never again have to stand behind someone and watch them die. Because I didn't have the power to fullfill my own selfish desire. That's what this is about for me now."
"And Sasuke?"
"That scumbag uchiha is a missing-nin. And I'll do what I must as a shinobi of Konoha. Whether it becomes revenge or justice when the time comes." She paused. "But I'm not building my life around him. Not anymore."
"Good."
Despite Sakura changing for the better, Kakashi felt... disappointed.
He recognized his own disgusting selfishness. The white haired jonin wanted her to choose revenge. Wanted her to say she was going to hunt Sasuke down and make him answer for what he had done. That would have given Kakashi a direction, a reason to stay alive. His last student needed him.
He had wanted her anger to be the thing that kept him standing.
That was a terrible thing to want. He knew that. But Kakashi was tired. A kind of tiredness that had been building since he was a child standing at the graves of his loved ones. His father. Obito. Rin. Minato.
After Minato, the desire to keep living had stopped arriving reliably in the mornings.
He had never said that to anyone.
Kakashi wanted to die. But he was too much of a coward to do it on his own. So he threw himself into the ANBU, hoping the world would do it for him. But he survived. And every time the thought of taking his life came, he would hear of Naruto's pranks. On the worst nights, Kakashi had caught himself thinking: I can't leave yet. Not while Sensei's kid is still out there without anyone.
It was barely a reason. But it had been enough, each time, to not go through with it.
Guy had eventually pulled him toward the jonin instructor program with the particular blend of enthusiasm and genuine care that Kakashi pretended to find exhausting. He had taken team after team and found conenient yet valif reasons to fail all of them.
Then came Team Seven.
He had passed them and spent a month afterward wondering if the universe had a mean streak.
Sakura was like Rin. Naruto was like Obito. Sasuke was like a younger version of himself.
Kakashi wasn't a superstitious man but he had a bad feeling that team 7 was going to fail like his team. So he taught them teamwork. If he drilled the lesson into them that no one gets left behind. So the pattern wouldn't repeat.
Yet Naruto was dead like Obito.
Sasuke was gone.
And Sakura was making good and healthy decisions for herself.
Do I even need to be here anymore? What am I still doing here? Kakashi thoughts spiraled.
Naruto was another name in a long list. Every person he had ever allowed himself to stand close to had been taken. And the ones he had kept to careful distance had slipped away anyway. Distance turned out not to be the protection he had designed it to be. It was just a way of making sure he had fewer good memories to show for the loss.
I have failed everyone I was supposed to protect.
Every single one.
How do I face Sensei and Lady Kushina in the pure lands? How do I stand in front of them and explain what happened to their son? What do I say to Rin? What do I say to Obito? What exactly am I still here for?
"Sensei."
The white hair jonin was brought back to the present.
Sakura was looking at him with a worried expression.
Did my mask slip? Kakashi wondered before producing an eye-smile. "I'll see you later, then."
He turned and started walking.
The way Kakashi was carrying himself was stiff. The slight forward curve that wasn't his usual lazy slouch. The man looked almost defeated.
"Sensei."
He kept walking.
"Are you going to leave me too?"
He stopped but didn't turn around.
"Please." Her voice cracked down the middle of the word. "Don't leave me. I am not strong enough to do this without you. I need you here. Please don't go."
Kakashi stood with his back to her and looked up at the sky breaking apart at the edges. The light was trying to get through.
He thought about his father. About the choice his father had made. Kakashi had spent his entire childhood trying to understand it. His adult life becoming someone who understood it better than he wanted to. He thought about Naruto, who had dragged himself through a world that had given him every reason to stop. Who had kept going on nothing but the conviction that he was owed a future and had died still believing it.
Sakura was so much like Rin. The same earnestness underneath the incompetence.
She is going to die just like Rin. And it will be my fault. Again.
The despair had a gravitational pull to it that was difficult to describe from the outside. Sakura's voice came through it. Please. Don't leave me. I am not strong enough to do this without you.
Kakashi stood very still. A hope rising that maybe he could protect someone. If he could make sure that Sakura got to live, then that would be something, right. Naruto's death was too much for him, but Kakashi knew that Naruto would be disappointed if he left Sakura alone.
"In the Ninja World, those who break the rules are scum, that's true...but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum!"
Sakura nodded at those words.
"Training starts tomorrow," he said. "Five in the morning. Don't be late."
"Yes, Sensei."
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The Hokage's office was a mess. Sake bottles occupied every surface while Tsunade sat drunk behind what remained of her desk.
"I-I knew I shouldn'y have given it to nim, " she said.. Her voice came out thick. "That cyrsed neckoace."
Shizune stood to the side and said nothing. The necklace had taken Nawaki, Dan and now Naruto. The one person Tsunade had allowed herself to believe might be the exception.
Tsunade reached for another bottle.
Shizune watched her with a heavy heart as the woman refused to go to the funeral. She wasn't ready. And they had the responsibilities of a leader.
One night. Tsunade had earned one night. Tomorrow the village would still need a Hokage, and Shizune would make sure one was available. Tonight she would stand here and bear witness to her master's drunkness.
Suddenly an ANBU flickered in.
"Lady Tsunade." He landed with his fist against the floor and kept his eyes down. "We have located several parties across Konoha celebrating the death of Naruto Uzumaki."
"..."
Shizune's jaw tightened. She knew the villagers hated Naruto because of the fox. But hearing that they were celebrating his death was just video. Tsunade's hand split the table down the center. The killing intent coming off her made every shinobi in the hokage tower shudder in fear.
"All ANBU. Before me. NOW!"
A group of anbu appeared before the hokage.
"Find every civilian celebrating Naruto Uzumaki's death." Her voice was cold. "Three years in prison with one million ryo bail. Any shinobi involved goes to Ibiki for correctional education. Move."
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
They were gone.
Shizune exhaled carefully. "This will create political complications. The Daimyo will recieve word from the civilian council. They'll push back."
"Then give them a reason they can't argue with." Tsunade dropped back into her chair. "Naruto's status as the Nine Tails jinchuriki is an open secret in this village. Civilians celebrating a jinchuriki's death sends a message to every other village in the world that Konoha is vulnerable. Frame the arrests as charges of treason. Let anyone who wants to argue explain why they're defending behavior that endangers the village's security."
Shizune blinked.
"Lady Tsunade," she said slowly. "That is... shrewd."
"I'm a Kage," Tsunade said flatly. "I intend to act like one." She was quiet for a moment. "The brat, Dan and Nawaki wanted to sit in this chair." She reached for a fresh bottle and poured two glasses. "For all three of them, I am going to be the best Kage this village has ever had."
"Yes, Lady Tsunade," Shizune said softly.
A knock at the door.
Shizune opened it to find Gaara standing in the corridor. The sand shinobi was staying in Konoha for Naruto's funeral.
"Gaara-san. Can this wait? Perhaps an hour, while we—"
"It concerns Sasuke Uchiha," Gaara said.
"Let him in," Tsunade said.
Gaara entered and took in the state of the room without comment.
"What do you want, kid?"
"Do you know how the Kazekage is selected?"
Tsunade and Shizune both nodded. Unlike Konoha's system of council deliberation and Daimyo confirmation, Suna had always drawn its leadership from direct bloodline. Every Kazekage had to be blood-related to the last.
"I will hold that seat within the next few months," Gaara said. "When I do, Sasuke Uchiha will be kill on sight for every Sand shinobi without exception."
"Good," Tsunade said. "If he thinks betraying this village comes free. He's going to learn otherwise."
"How would you feel about a joint unit between Konoha and Suna. A dedicated task force with a single objective. Kill Sasuke Uchiha and Orochimaru."
Tsunade poured a second glass and pushed it across the ruined desk toward him.
"You're speaking my language."
Gaara looked at the glass. A single tear moved down his face.
He had wanted Naruto to see him become Kazekage. Had wanted to show him what one person's belief had made possible. The wanting of that had nowhere to go now.
"In his memory," Gaara said, lifting the glass.
"In the memory of that brat," Tsunade said.
They drank.
Outside the office windows, Konoha settled into an uneasy night. Beneath the surface of everything, the shinobi world was shifting toward a storm that none of them could fully see yet. The death of one boy was already sending its first ripples outward in every direction.
Meanwhile in another world entirely, that same boy was beginning to wake up to a world of curses and sorcerers.
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Author Note:
And with that, the chapter comes to a close. Hope you all enjoyed it. I tried to make every character's reaction feel specific to who they are rather than a generic grief/ survivour guilt response, and to show that Naruto's absence has real consequences for the world he left behind.
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1. Should Naruto be MIA rather than declared dead?
Honestly I was tempted. No body was recovered, which leaves genuine room for doubt. I could see a version of this where the village is split between assuming Sasuke took him to Orochimaru and assuming he's deaf. But there's something specific I want to explore with Naruto in the JJK world, particularly around him adapting to the idea that going home may not be an option. That story works better if the people back home believe he's dead. So that's the direction we're going.
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2. Why did you write Kakashi with suicidal tendencies?
Because it felt like the honest conclusion of his character. Kakashi's entire identity is built around the people he has lost. Sakumo. Obito. Rin. Minato. When Naruto dies, the weight of that specific loss is compounded by guilt that is uniquely his. He didn't look after Naruto growing up despite knowing exactly who the boy was. When Naruto became his student, he taught him chakra control and not much else. While he poured real investment into Sasuke, including his own signature technique. And as far as Kakashi knows, Sasuke used that exact technique to kill Naruto.
That particular combination of guilt and loss felt like it would push Kakashi somewhere dark. I don't think he would act on it. But I do think those thoughts would be there, louder than they had ever been. Sakura giving him a reason to stay felt like the natural counterweight to that.
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3. Will the story continue following the Konoha side alongside the JJK side?
This one I've gone back and forth on. There's genuinely interesting material there. Sasuke awakening his Mangekyou 3 years earlier, the Konoha 12 all having personal reasons to go after him, the joint Sand and Konoha task force targeting Orochimaru, the way the entire post-canon trajectory shifts without Naruto in it etc. A lot has changed from canon and it would be worth exploring.
But this is fundamentally a story about Naruto in the JJK world, and that needs to stay the focus. What I'm thinking is occasional bonus chapters, maybe once per arc, that check in on what's happening back in the elemental nations. Nothing that derails the main story, just enough to show the ripple effects of his absence.
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That's It… For Now.
I want to thank you all for taking the time to read, comment, and follow along with this story. Your feedback means more than you know, and it helps push me to make each chapter bigger, sharper, and more true to the worlds of Naruto and Jujutsu Kaisen.
And if you can't wait for the next update, the next chapter drops on August 13th! You can read ahead to Chapter 16 on P@trEon or come join me on discord
Until next time,
With this treasure, I summon...
-Adam-