Crackle… crackle…
Within the bright yellow campfire, the uneven, rhythmic burning sounds were one of the night wind's few accompaniments. This was the sound produced within the flames as different parts of the wood heated unevenly, causing the wood to deform and its fibers to break.
"Uchiha… Sasuke…"
Beneath the flickering flames, Naruto's expression was puzzled. After learning that Sasuke had also defected, a strange sliver of worry had inexplicably appeared in his heart. It was very strange. He and Uchiha Sasuke barely knew each other, merely nodding acquaintances. If the source of this worry had been Shikamaru or any of the others, he wouldn't be feeling this current confusion.
"Kurama, is there something wrong with my soul?" Naruto inquired. Kurama resided in his mental space; regarding the state of his soul, Kurama possibly understood it better than he himself did.
"…No." Kurama sensed for a moment, then shook his head slightly.
Naruto fell silent. He himself had checked several times, and the results were identical to Kurama's: his soul was 'pure,' containing only his own consciousness. But if his soul was free from external interference, then what was this inexplicable worry in his heart? His own emotions? He wasn't exactly a sentimental person. Genjutsu? With Kurama around, he was already immune to the vast majority of illusionary techniques.
Naruto pushed his hair back from his forehead and slowly rose. Having eliminated all other conjectures, the most unlikely one then became the only possibility. Something was subtly influencing him. And this something, neither he nor Kurama could perceive. That was somewhat terrifying. He had lived three lives, meditated for two of them; while his soul might not be stronger than anyone else's, it was definitely among the absolute top tier in the entire ninja world. Kurama, needless to say, was a mobile natural disaster.
"What's wrong?" Kurama asked, puzzled. He had thought for a moment that Naruto had fallen under a genjutsu.
After a moment of thought, Naruto still chose to voice his recent discovery. Since the entity influencing him was on a level far exceeding his own, his earlier actions might have already alerted it to his suspicions. Rather than concealing it, it was better to confide in Kurama. Three cobblers with their wits combined are better than one Zhuge Liang, as the saying goes. Besides, the great fox had lived for so long; perhaps he had some special methods for dealing with such mysterious, ghost-like entities.
After listening, Kurama scrutinized him carefully from top to bottom, left to right, for a long while. "If I didn't know your personality, I would definitely think your brain had short-circuited."
"Your intuition might be correct. Chakra itself is a combination of spiritual and physical energy. Perhaps when chakra becomes powerful enough to a certain degree, it's not impossible for one to continue existing in the world after death."
"Of course, this is just a conjecture. After all, even the Old Man Six Paths couldn't use this method to continue living, so this conjecture basically has no possibility of being valid."
Naruto rubbed his chin and nodded slightly.
"What are you doing?" Kurama asked, taken aback as he saw Naruto begin to mobilize the chakra within his body.
"Rather than just sit here and await my doom, I'd better go check on Uchiha Sasuke, see what exactly it is that's constantly luring this 'thing' inside me." Naruto's figure abruptly vanished from his spot.
Valley of the End.
It was said to be the place where the First Hokage and Uchiha Madara had their final parting. This place was not only a symbol of the formal severance of their friendship and ideals but also represented the end of a great era.
"I heard this place is a product of the battle between Uchiha Madara and the First Hokage. Is that true?" Standing atop Uchiha Madara's stone statue, gazing at the broad riverbed that seemed to stretch endlessly, Naruto asked.
"Compared to those two, you still have a long way to grow," Kurama said with a sigh of emotion. Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama—although he disliked both of those fellows, even hated them, their power was such that even he, as the strongest of the Tailed Beasts, couldn't help but feel a sense of admiration.
"Aren't you going to check out the battle nearby?" Kurama asked. Some of the auras there, if his senses weren't mistaken, belonged to acquaintances.
"Since I chose to leave, I should make a clean break. What's the point of these lingering attachments and being so indecisive?" Naruto harrumphed lightly.
"…Is that so?" Kurama teased. He might be sealed, but he wasn't blind. Naruto had blatantly sent several shadow clones rushing towards the battlefield; even an idiot could tell what he was up to.
"Exactly." Naruto rubbed his chin. In his Mind's Eye of Kagura's perception, a familiar chakra was rapidly approaching this location. "But what's with this inexplicable dark feeling?" Though the chakra was still Sasuke's, the drastically changed aura almost made him unrecognizable.
"Come on then, let me see what exactly it is that's attracting me!" Naruto slowly rose, rapidly mobilizing the two great energies within his body, fusing and nurturing new chakra.
Within a stretch of jungle.
Spiderwebs, suffused with a large amount of chakra, hung in every corner of the woods. Kidomaru, like a spider, hung suspended on one such web, looking down at his prey below with keen interest, just like a true predator stalking its meal. He hadn't concealed his form, not out of arrogance in his own powerful abilities to easily dispatch the enemy before him. On the contrary, this Hyuga genin from Konoha was strong, so strong that he had been forced to enter his Curse Mark Level 2 state, constantly pushing his own body to exchange for even greater power. And the reason he hadn't chosen to hide himself was simply because there was no need. No matter how he tried to conceal his form, the Hyuga clan's Byakugan could accurately ferret him out from any nook or cranny.
"His chakra should be running out." Kidomaru, like a true wild beast, was gradually wearing down his prey's stamina, waiting to deliver the final, fatal blow. And now, after a long period of attrition, it was finally time to reap the fruits of his labor. But he didn't recklessly launch an attack because of this. The struggles of a cornered beast were often the most dangerous.
Rustle… rustle…
The sound of plants rubbing against each other constantly reached his ears, like a dull knife sawing at flesh, relentlessly grating on Hyuga Neji's nerves. The pressure of death instinctively tensed his nerves; wildly surging blood was pumped by his hyper-beating heart to every corner of his body. The veins bulging around his eyes were like a drawn bowstring, silently awaiting the enemy's appearance.
The Byakugan's visible range was shrinking bit by bit. Hyuga Neji understood that his chakra was once again critically low. Despite consuming military rations pills several times and constantly pushing his body to its limits, just like water being wrung from a sponge until it's dry, his body could no longer refine even the slightest bit more chakra. The Byakugan's powerful reconnaissance ability was mostly obstructed by the chakra-laden spiderwebs all around; the Hyuga clan's mainstays—Gentle Fist, tenketsu sealing—had been countered by his opponent one by one. His bloodied fingertips were a testament to his numerous failed attempts to seal tenketsu.
"The Byakugan… truly an enviable Kekkei Genkai…" Kidomaru, through the sweat glands on his skin, once again condensed a layer of 'Spider Sticky Gold,' lest he be caught again by the Hyuga kid sealing his tenketsu in the upcoming fight. Even someone as proud as him wouldn't dare to engage in a taijutsu battle with a Hyuga ninja if his tenketsu were sealed.
"He's coming!!" The veins around Hyuga Neji's eyes bulged several degrees larger.
For the final blow, Kidomaru no longer held back. Countless chakra-hardened spider threads shot out from all directions, from every angle, stabbing towards the enemy below.