Alaric Stark's journey beyond the Wall began under a leaden sky. The air grew sharper, the wind carrying whispers of ancient cold.
For three days, he pressed on, the vast, white plains stretching endlessly, broken only by frozen rivers and stunted pines. Wildlings shadowed him—ragged bands of hunters, cloaked in furs, their spears glinting.
Some were cannibals, their eyes hollow with hunger, driven by the eternal winter to feast on kin. They ambushed in packs, arrows whistling, axes raised, but Alaric was unrelenting.
With the Wood Release Jutsu, summoned roots ensnared them, chakra-enhanced strikes felled their leaders, and Fire Style blasts turned their assaults to ash.
"Foolish," he muttered after one skirmish, his eyes scanning the horizon. Bodies littered his path, a warning to any who followed, but the wilds cared little for warnings.
By dusk on the third day, Alaric reached the mountainous region of the Thenns, the last known human settlement in the True North. The valleys were stark; the Thenns, bronze-wielding and disciplined, had dwell deeper into the peaks.
Alaric dismounted, his hoverboard folding neatly onto his back. For the night, he gathered chakra, slamming his hands together. "Wood Style: Four-Pillar House!" Timbers sprouted from the frozen ground, weaving into a sturdy hut with a thatched roof and a hearth that ignited with a spark of fire jutsu.
Warmth filled the space, and Alaric ate from his supplies—dried venison, bread, and a flask of "Stark's Fire" whiskey—his mind on the morrow. The Night King's energy pulsed like a distant storm, cold and malevolent. "Tomorrow," he whispered, "it ends."
At dawn, Alaric set out, his hoverboard gliding over the deepening snow toward the Land of Always Winter. The chill intensified, frost riming his furs, and soon the board fluctuated, its runes flickering.
"The cold's too extreme," Alaric grunted, dismounting as it sputtered. He continued on foot, his sage mode enhancing his endurance, his steps light despite the drifts. Night fell early, the sun a weak glow, and Alaric felt it—a malevolent energy closing in, like shadows given life.
He stopped in a frozen clearing, chakra surging as he prepared. Roots coiled beneath the snow, ready to strike. For three hours, he waited in the midnight dark, the wind howling, until screeching pierced the silence—wights, tens of thousands strong, shambling horrors with blue eyes, led by White Walkers on dead horses and ice spiders.
Alaric's grin was feral. "Come, then." As the horde surged within range, he clapped his hands. "Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence!" The ground erupted, trees bursting forth at blinding speed, their branches and roots entangling wights in a writhing mass of wood.
Screeches turned to cracks as limbs snapped, the undead horde immobilized in a forest born of chakra. Alaric inhaled, chakra flaring. "Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!" A torrent of flames exploded from his mouth, igniting the trees in a blazing inferno.
Wights burned, their blue eyes dimming, the night lit by roaring fire as Alaric waited, his sword drawn—the special blade forged for this: an alloy of dragonglass powder, iron, and weirwood sap, etched with runes for fire generation, unbreakable resilience, and eternal sharpness.
The flames died, revealing charred remains, but the Night King watched from the rear, his crystalline crown glinting on his dead horse. With a gesture, he sent five White Walkers—his commanders—and the remaining wights, a tide of undead surging forward.
Alaric pushed magic into his sword, its blade igniting with crimson flames. "My turn." He charged, a blur of motion, slashing through wights like wheat, their bodies shattering under the blade's heat.
Mid-run, he leapt, beheading the first commander with a fiery arc, its body crumbling to ice shards. The second fell to a thrust through the heart, the third to a sweeping cut. Wights clawed at him, but Alaric's chakra-enhanced strength flung them aside, his sword a whirlwind of flame.
The fourth commander lunged with an ice spear, but Alaric parried, shattering it, and drove his blade into its chest. Half the wights collapsed, their unlife tied to their masters.
The fifth commander roared, swinging a frozen axe, but Alaric dodged, countering with a slash that cleaved it in two.
Alaric's gaze locked on the Night King, who wheeled his dead ice spider and fled, his blue aura pulsing. "No escape," Alaric snarled, sprinting after.
The Night King summoned a snowstorm, blinding whirlwinds hiding his path, but Alaric's sage mode pierced the veil, sensing the cold magic. For three days, the chase endured—across glacial plains, through howling blizzards, Alaric's endurance unflagging, his chakra sustaining him.
On the third day, in the heart of the Land of Always Winter, Alaric closed the gap. The Night King turned, hurling an ice spear that Alaric ducked, the projectile shattering behind him.
Alaric lunged, his flaming sword piercing the Night King's heart. The entity screeched, blue eyes flaring, then shattered like glass, its form crumbling to frost.
A pulse of cold erupted from the Night King's remains, spreading outward in a wave that blanketed Westeros. Temperatures dipped unnaturally, snowstorm in the true North, icing of rivers in the Riverlands, snow in the sands of Dorne.
For a day, the world basked in eerie cold, birds didn't leave their nests, and flowers withered in frost.
On the second day, the pulse subsided, temperatures returning to normal, the unnatural cold a whisper of the ancient threat ended.
Alaric stood amid the dissipating storm, his sword dimming, the True North silent for the first time in millennia. "It's done," he murmured, turning south.
The Long Night's shadow had lifted, and a new era dawned for the wildlings—and the world.