Injustice Book 1: A Journeys Beginning (Naruto + Batman Comics crossover)

Chapter LXI - Freedom

"Normal Speech."

'Normal Thought.'

"Demon Speech."

'Demon Thought.'

"Other Speech variants."

Location/Time.

-X- Line Break -X-

Saturday 4th July, 00:40.

Washington D.C,

Cadmus Research Facility.

Again and again.

Memory after memory played out before him, each one torturous and painful, only driving him further and further to the brink. Each of them showed a young Naruto enjoying life with his family and friends. Whether it was memories of spending time with his parents or playing pranks on them with Barbaras help. Each of them elected the same feelings of frustration, sadness, loneliness and most of all, rage.

Rage at being unable to relive them, to feel the embrace of his parents.

Yet, he'd lost the will to move, the will to rage. He had just collapsed, but no matter how hard he tried to block out the sounds or turn away from the sight, they all just seemed to follow him. It made it impossible to look away.

As he watched his younger self resting comfortably on his fathers shoulders as the Uzumaki family walked through the park. Naruto couldn't tear his eyes away, he wanted to so badly, he wanted this all to end. But no matter how much he begged and cried out for this to end, it never did.

Until it finally did.

The ground gave way beneath his knees and Naruto plummeted, the memory fading away into smoke as Naruto fell to the ground below. With a splash, Naruto landed on all fours in a flooded corridor with numerous pipes running along the edge of the wall.

Groaning, Naruto pushed himself up and looked down to see that the water was up to his forearm. "What the hell?" Looking up he studied the corridor he was in, it was long with no end in sight but he could make out a small junction ahead. And every inch of it was flooded with the same murky water. Eventually his gaze looked up and saw that, much like the corridor it had no end, neither did the walls. Each of them rose up on either side and disappeared into shadows. "Where am I?"

Pushing himself to his feet slowly, Naruto went to dry his hands only to find them dry. 'What the hell is this place?' Again his gaze looked up and he tried to see if he could find where he was before. 'Was that real?'

Shaking his head, he put the memories out of his mind and instead started walking towards the junction. The path continued forward even beyond that, but it also continued indefinitely to the left and right as well, even behind him he couldn't see the end.

'What is this place?' Despite his questions going unanswered, Naruto just continued to walk forwards and to his relief, managed to see light up ahead. Increasing his speed, Naruto ran down the corridor and burst out into a large open space. It was flooded, much like the rest of the area, but before him was a large number of bars. Each were far thicker than him in width, but unlike the rest of this place he could actually see where they ended.

All of them were connected to the same stone structure that made up the rest of this place and each bar was separated wide enough that Naruto could fit through quite easily.

Moving forwards curiously, Naruto went to enter, only for the bars to morph and shift, becoming thinner and and more tightly compact. The length of them didn't change, each as long as they had been, but it was likely they split apart, becoming thinner as to stop him from stepping through. At the same time, a handle appeared as if giving him the option to open it.