Naruto: The Seraph Project

Chapter 13: Who Is Naruto? (Updated)

It is said that there's only nothingness in the darkness where broken hearts roam; others say darkness harbours the stillness and peace of soul that soothe hearts in crisis. One thing certain and unanimous is the belief that a paradoxical silence reigns in this familiar absolute... However, I hear a sound with which echo mingles. It's this droplet melody hammering the aqueous surface that makes me open my eye.

I don't recognize the places ... rather, there's only emptiness around me; a dark infinity and an expanse of water in which my whole body flounders and floats. The ultimate black is devoid of lights, but I can see. The cold and humidity seeped into my flesh, so deeply that my bones are frozen. I guess I've been oblivious in it for too long...

Why was I unconscious by the way?

But above all, where am I?

Is it a dream?

Yet the whole thing is too real for that to be the case. Lucid dreams, I'm used to them, even if they are often nightmares engendered by the ghosts of my past. What my five senses translate... I convince myself that this is real even though nothing makes sense. After all, the memory of going to bed after my visit to Naruto's jail is crystal clear.

In search of answers, I get up. I see that the pond I'm in goes to my ankles. Not knowing where to go, I walk in front of me and venture into this strange and silent universe. Only my steps break this agonizing and oppressive silence. Nevertheless, I move forward with mistrust, on my guard and on the lookout for danger.

I wander in an unspeakable time; to believe that time itself doesn't exist here. Suddenly, my hairs stand on end and goosebumps overtake me. I am observed by gazes from all directions; I am agitated due to the panic which tries to seize me. I feel terribly alone in this world of darkness in which my presence is undesirable.

I hear a voice, a few whispers, as if my head was underwater. I turn around abruptly and frantically analyze the surroundings. Emptiness, nothingness and again emptiness and nothingness. There's nothing... However, my organ of love is racing for no reason; my chest is hammered relentlessly and constantly pinches me in agony. I take a deep breath to keep my cool.

'Calm down,' I repeat to myself as I scan my surroundings.

I turn around once more and paralyze. In front of me stands a large damaged and cracked mirror; the dust that covers it betrays its old age untouched by the humidity of this endless ocean. The latter projects my reflection, but something is wrong. This figure sports that silver hair being mine, that wintry white skin being mine, and that deep black eye being mine. This eye—yet mine—is foreign to me; I don't recognize myself in this gaze which isn't mine.

As if this mirror were calling me and bewitching me, I answer the invitation. I put my palm against the glass to touch my inverted twin. On contact, it's cold, excruciatingly icy to the point that a sharp pain stings my skin. I should withdraw, but an invisible force pushes me to stay against my will.

"Who is Naruto?" asks the reflection in front of me.

I miss a heartbeat, now holding my breath. It observes me, plunges its empty eye into mine; it seeks to read in me like an open book, to discover all my well-kept secrets. I hold its gaze. Its question disturbs me; I don't know what it meant. The strangeness of the situation clogs my throat and condemns me to silence.

This silhouette lowers its head, avoids any retinal contact. Like an undulating mirage on misty seas, this entity morphs before my eyes, as does the timbre of its voice.

"What is Naruto?"

I recognize Naruto instead of my reflection. His blond locks completely camouflage his eyes. Dumbfounded, I am unable to react. His broken voice in search of an answer goes through my whole body. It's an electric and ephemeral shock when you bump your elbow on the corner of a table. A shiver of dread accompanies this suffering which strangles me; I feel like my trachea is narrowing over time.

"What does Naruto mean?"

This voice is the same, but behind my back. I turn around with a start. In the distance, I see Naruto. He's squatting down, curled up in a ball, hiding his face behind his knees, which he hugs tenderly to drive away the loneliness. He reinforces this embrace offered to himself while trembling; the loneliness in which he's immersed is so powerful that it breaks my heart. He's very small, invisible, disappearing and flowing into the infinite expanse.

"Naruto!" I shout, rushing to get to him...

No matter how much I run, more and more, relentlessly, the distance is the same—rather, it grows wider. Faced with this inexplicable phenomenon, I stop.

Am I under genjutsu?

I join my hands together in order to destabilize the flow of my chakra and thus break this technique, whatever it is... However, nothing happens. I am still a prisoner of this universe of darkness. I... I don't understand. Yet, I remain confident in my abilities; freeing myself from a genjutsu is child's play for me. The only genjutsu I could never break was the Tsukuyomi in which I was tortured for three whole days ... even more.

"Why are you calling me Naruto?" he asks in a desperate tone.

I ignore this illusion of bad taste and focus on my chakra, determined to break this spell once and for all. I close my eye and mix my chakra in large quantities to better disturb it. In doing so, I feel weird, weirder and weirder... I lose control over my bluish essence that escapes from my body, as if it had a will of its own or was stolen from me. My strength is leaving me at an alarming rate. I gasp loudly and my organs are unable to fill with air.

Opening my eyelid, I see with horror that my chakra is swept away in this strange tornado that twirls around Naruto. My body refuses to obey me; I cannot stop moulding my chakra which is dangerously becoming low. All my limbs no longer respond to me. I'm paralyzed, as if I'm under the effect of a petrification spell. I am helpless...

I then sink into a nameless terror.

As Naruto's blond hair, like that black tail, ignites in a glorious, unstoppable fire, a shadow grows behind him. It's absolutely black on which an evil smile tears its face in two. Two empty circles appear and paralyze me deep inside; if I meet the gaze of this thing, I will lose myself behind it, and this, for eternity.

I ... That thing... Yes, it's the same thing I fought when Naruto was kidnapped... Why...?

Then, the very evidence hits me like thunder.

My chakra is being absorbed.

Naruto is absorbing my chakra.

In the same way as this black entity.

Every second counts for me now. I can only contemplate in my impotence this nascent fire which engulfs this universe of darkness. Its light drives away this bizarre entity which mysteriously evaporates in a sardonic laugh. The teenager curls up more and more on himself; the evil in his soul is so big that I am drowning in it.

"Why do you say I'm Naruto?"

Again, his voice breaks the silence suffocating by the flames that bury the skies and this unfathomable sea. It reaches me, my ears. It stabs me like a blade in the heart to sow a heinous evil shaking my whole being.

"I'm nobody, yet you say otherwise..."

My vision blurs and my lungs are poisoned with this toxic and fiery smoke. I falter on my knees, then on all fours. I only have one breath of chakra left. If this doesn't stop, I will...

I collapse in spite of myself in this water. It swallows me whole and I sink. I sink and I sink, swallowed by the depths of an endless ocean. The pain subsides as the liquid fills my empty lungs with oxygen. My eyelids are heavy...

While this dark tapestry is taking shape on my retinas, taking me where one never returns, I hear him, in an echo, his voice, once again, one last time.

"Naruto... Why did you give me that name...?"