Raw, fractured shouts collided with one another inside the stone-and-wood communal refuge Haru had dragged them into, where warriors—or at least people who looked like warriors—had gathered in panic after the explosion.
The thunder did little to ease the atmosphere; if anything, it only worsened it, crashing down with an intensity and frequency far beyond anything they had witnessed before, as if the storm itself were tightening its grip around the island. But amid the chaos of reaching the shelter, Sasuke had clearly seen something far worse: the lightning threading through the clouds had turned red. Each strike split the sky open in a violent crimson glare before slamming into the earth, staining everything in a brief, blood-dark glow.
Sasuke stood rigid near the back, once again aware of that inhuman heat crawling beneath his skin, the same that had been tormenting him for days now. He forced it down and shoved it to the back of his consciousness, burying it beneath the urgency of everything unfolding around them.
He stayed close to Killer B because—
Because…
Well,
He was the biggest one there, and somewhere along the way, Sasuke had apparently and totally unconsciously designated him as the most capable of protecting him if something went wrong.
Because yes, pathetically enough—for what might have been the first time in his life, he felt the need to stay close to a contingency plan in case his body suddenly failed him. He had already learned the hard way that his consciousness could vanish without warning, so he refused to make the same mistake twice.
At the center of the room, a man with long, straight hair as strikingly silver as Ayame's raised his voice above the din.
The man stood elevated on a low platform, his armor older than most in the room, etched with symbols Sasuke didn't recognize. His presence alone forced a fraction of the noise to collapse inward.
"We have no answers for what has just occurred," the man continued with a loud and steady voice, unmistakably one of a leader. "The only way to understand what happened is to go to the heart of the island and find those answers ourselves. Immediately!"
Yet for all the courage woven into his tone, for all the heroic resolve he tried to project, the crowd did not buy it.
A wave of outrage surged forward.
"You're insane!" someone shouted from within the mass, with a fist raised in protest. "I'm sick of us being nothing but food for the Storm!"
"In forty years I've lived on this island," another voice cut in, quieter at first, but rising with each word until it strained against the thunder outside, "and I have never seen the sky split like that. Never! Sending people into the Storm now is suicide!"
"It's always been suicide!"
More and more voices joined in, stacking over one another until the air itself felt tight and heavy.
Sasuke's jaw tightened.
No one in that room knew he was the reason this was happening. Not even the ones who had traveled here with him. In fact—even he wasn't entirely certain.
When he had woken up, he had told himself it was only a dream. But listening now to the descriptions of 'the light', the sound it made, and the sky tearing itself apart… there was no doubt left.
Whatever had happened when he pulled that kunai free, this was the result.
And he would have had no problem claiming the blame, no hesitation in stepping forward and saying it aloud, if not for one infuriating, inescapable complication:
How the hell am I supposed to get back there and fix it?
He didn't even know where to begin theorizing.
Ayame and Haru had told him, very convincingly, that the Nine-Tails was tied to the Storm, and they had explained why they believed that in great detail. In fact, it had been laid out so thoroughly that Sasuke had immediately recognized the similarity between his own symptoms and those of the people infected by the fox's chakra.
And as if that were not enough, after that fucking astral trip in which he had shattered something that, apparently, had been fundamental to the balance of the fucking island—something had also exploded at the center of it, mirroring his "dream" almost perfectly.
So yes, connecting the dots in his head had not been difficult. By a method he still did not understand, he had acquired the Nine-Tails' chakra, and approaching the island had been the trigger for all of these problems inside him to begin surfacing.
The problem, in fact, was him.
Now… he didn't know whether that meant he should disappear from this place entirely or sink even deeper into it.
"You're right," the man at the center said, reclaiming the room. "You don't know what that light or that explosion was. Neither do I. But if we stay here doing nothing, all of our lives are at risk. Gods know what has been awakened now! The entire village could be in danger because of this, and what—are we going to stand around with our arms crossed for those who died before us? No!"
The murmurs wavered.
"If we stay here," he continued, his voice hardening, "if we cling to these walls and pretend the Storm will spare us out of mercy, then we die anyway. And history will remember us as cowards who chose to rot instead of—" blah, blah, blah…
Motivational speech, motivational speech.
Sasuke had heard more than enough of those in his lifetime, and right now he had far more important things to figure out than listening to another man try to wrap fear in the shape of courage.
As the shouting began to rise again around them, the Uchiha turned toward his team, noticing how every single one of them wore the same expression of exhaustion and muted annoyance, and simply said, "I'm leaving," already taking his first steps against the packed current of bodies.
Haru's eyes went wide.
"Yeah… me too. All of this is a pain in the ass," Shikamaru added almost at the same time Samui and Omoi voiced their agreement, his hands buried deep in his pockets as he shrugged with complete indifference while Sai, without saying a word, fell into step behind them as if he had never intended to stay in the first place.
Suddenly, Haru moved faster, darting ahead of the group and planting himself directly in front of the exit, stretching both arms out wide and blocking the way just before they could step outside the refuge.
"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded, unsurprising to Sasuke in the slightest. "We need your help! Whatever happened at the center of the—
"Move."
Sasuke closed the distance, seized the man by the shoulder, and shoved him aside with brute force, carving a path forward without breaking pace.
Haru stumbled from the impact, skidding against the stone floor but managing to stay upright. He could only watch as every last one of them passed him, filing out of the refuge without sparing him so much as a glance.
Outside, the rain crashed down on their uniforms with a violence it hadn't had when they arrived, soaking them almost entirely in just seconds.
Still, Haru tried again, quickening his steps to keep up.
"Listen," he said, more steady despite the desperation still bleeding through his voice. "I understand that your mission here was only to escort Lady Ayame, I really do. But please—I'm begging you—"
"Sai, you're staying behind with Haru and Ayame," Sasuke cut in, not even acknowledging the other man's presence as he spoke. "Your abilities are useless right now. Or—well—they almost always are. But I need you here, keeping the villagers in line so they don't get any ideas about following us."
"Oh?" Shikamaru drawled, utterly unbothered. "Are you the captain now?"
"Oh, I could never," Sasuke replied flatly, rolling his eyes in open irritation. His gaze then shifted toward the shinobi from Kumogakure. "I don't know what you're capable of," he continued, "but considering your entire reason for being here is the Storm, I can't stop you from coming either."
"Well, would you look at that," Samui scoffed under her breath, crossing her arms as she fixed the Uchiha with a sideways, challenging smile. "You want Killer Bee here to remind you what we can do, kid?"
Sasuke met her stare without flinching, returning the same kind of sharp smile.
"Can you even hear me?!" Sasuke caught Haru desperately shouting in the background just as a thunderclap tore violently across the sky.
Ah. Right.
"Yeah, yeah, we hear you," the Nara finally conceded with a voice so worn-down it almost drew a full laugh out of the Uchiha. "Go back to the house—residence or whatever that place was—and stay with Ayame while we deal with whatever is happening at the center of the—"
"No!"
Ayame stepped forward in a single, decisive motion, placing herself directly in front of Sasuke and forcing his full attention onto her. In that same movement, one of her hands tore the bandage clean off her face, finally revealing her eyes.
And Sasuke immediately regretted having been looking at her.
Not only were they the right color, but there was an unyielding certainty in them. A conviction that would be nearly impossible to fracture.
A look Sasuke would recognize anywhere.
"Do you understand?"
Those blue eyes flooded his mind without warning. For a split second, the refuge, the shouting, the storm—they all dissolved into memory.
Sasuke could almost see him again… just as fucking blurry as that day.
"I'm the only one who can fulfill that duty.
So I'll bear the burden of your hatred.
And I'll die with you."
"The Storm took my parents," Ayame said with that same unbreakable determination ringing through her voice as she stood her ground. "I have to go. I won't stay behind while you help my people. This is my home. It was my parents' home."
Sasuke watched her as another bolt of lightning struck nearby, its flash carving sharp shadows across her face and hardening her features even further.
He had to be hallucinating, because for the briefest, disorienting instant, he could have sworn he was looking at Naruto standing in front of him.
"Hm." The sound slipped out of him along with a smile he couldn't quite stop. "I'm not going to change your mind, am I?"
The question was barely meant for her at all.
"Miss Ayame," Shikamaru stepped in, positioning himself just close enough to sever whatever spell Sasuke had momentarily fallen into and had been dangerously comfortable inside. "You are our priority in this mission. We need—"
"She's coming with me," the Uchiha decided, already stepping forward again before anyone could argue further.
Before they could see the curve of that smile lingering at the corner of his mouth.
Several confused 'huh?' echoed behind him—Ayame's included—but he didn't slow down. At least, not until the questioning murmurs shifted into an urgent and loud "watch out!" from Ayame herself.
When Sasuke turned back toward the others in high alert, every single one of them had dropped into a defensive stance as if bracing for impact—one coming from exactly where he was standing.
But when he snapped his gaze forward again, it was already too late.
Something massive that he couldn't quite decipher through the blur of frantic motion vaulted over him and slammed straight into the group of shinobi behind him.
Worse still, the attack tore straight through the communal refuge where the warriors had still been arguing, obliterating a large section of it and leaving the interior completely exposed, forcing everyone to run outside and spill into the open.
"Are you okay?!" Ayame shouted, and Sasuke didn't immediately understand why. She was the one gripping his arm, safe somewhere far from the point of impact, and he was the one who pulled her and displaced them both thanks to the Rinnegan.
"Me?" He glanced at her, genuinely puzzled. "Are you okay?"
That seemed to be when it clicked for her. And, in turn, Sasuke realized that everything must have happened far too fast for her to fully process it. So he couldn't really blame her for that.
When he looked back toward where they'd been standing, the others had already dealt with the creature. Or, at least, with one of them. Because almost immediately, more began to emerge from every direction.
They were chakra constructs—that was more than obvious. Molded into grotesque, unstable monstrosities with no concrete structure, and others shaped like different wild animals, only larger and more intimidating, with claws and fangs perfectly suited to tear through flesh with ease.
Being made of chakra, Sasuke understood the added difficulty of them being partially intangible. He would know because he had fought against Naruto's chakra arms more times than he cared to count. The only way to make them tangible enough to destroy was to land a precise, fast enough strike to disperse the chakra molecules faster than they could reform. Basically, everything came down to speed. For both the attacker and the victim. That was why creatures like this could be so dangerous—because claws the size of your entire body coming at the speed required to actually pierce you were something only those accustomed to that kind of combat could realistically handle.
But apparently, the group of shinobi Sasuke had come with didn't see it as much of a problem. They all seemed to grasp the dynamic immediately.
When Sasuke returned his attention to Ayame, he realized the girl had been struggling against his grip the entire time he'd been observing, trying to wrench herself free so she could rush back and help the others.
Sasuke wasn't even trying to hold her in place.
"You said you were coming," he began amid her struggling and sharp complaints. "And you can't even get out of my grip? What are you going to do when you get there?"
At that, the young woman froze abruptly, staring at him in complete horror, as if the thought hadn't even crossed her mind until now.
"You're fine here," he said calmly. "Now answer me. Those things. What are they?"
Ayame turned her head back toward the battlefield, where Sasuke could hear the chaos escalating by the second, then back to him.
"They're entities," she explained. "Manifestations that appear where the chakra network flows are most concentrated."
"Is what you mentioned earlier, right? About how areas with higher flow tend to show increased abnormal activity."
She nodded.
"And these entities of yours," the Uchiha continued. "You still believe they carry the same signature as me?"
She didn't hesitate for even a second before nodding again, firm and unwavering.
"And… aside from the entities and the chakra flow networks that share the same type of chakra… the Storm itself—the clouds, the lightning, all of it—that too, right?" he pressed.
Ayame looked up, toward the crimson stain swallowing the sky. "I hadn't felt it that clearly until now, but… yes."
"And you've never sensed anything like that coming from a person before me?"
She shook her head.
"Good," he concluded, feigning a calm he absolutely did not feel in the burn coiling through his chest, nor in the tight, simmering discomfort twisting his stomach.
After straightening and releasing her, the Uchiha started his way forward toward the others, who had nearly finished dealing with the wave of entities.
"Stay close. As long as you're with me, they won't attack you," he ordered, pitching his voice high enough to carry. In truth, he wasn't entirely certain—but they had already spent enough time away from the creatures to test his suspicion.
She obeyed without resistance, and by the time they reached the place where everyone had converged—fighting, if that word even applied—to hold the line alongside the island's warriors, Sasuke waited for the precise moment when one of the entities was about to tear an islander's head clean off and placed his hand against it to tore through its form with obscene force, making it burst into thousands of small, trembling bubbles.
Just like he had done the first time he had come face to face with the Nine-Tails inside Naruto.
This was fun.
"They're manifestations of the Storm," Haru rushed to explain once Sasuke was close enough, raising his voice to cut through the dozens of desperate shouts around them. "It's strange for them to appear here. This refuge is supposed to be located where the chakra network flow is minimal—it's always been a safe place. The massive waves of these entities usually appear closer to the center, right before the barrier!"
"Are these the things that kill them during the expeditions?" Sai asked, crouching down as he watched one of the fallen chakra bubbles continue to writhe against the ground.
And judging by his faintly sarcastic tone, it was clear everyone was thinking the same thing—these were laughably poor enemies to be slaughtering people in droves.
Haru nodded, visibly uncomfortable. "N-not always," he admitted. "Those who manage to push through the waves and reach the center are quickly annihilated by the Storm itself."
"By lightning?" Omoi asked suddenly, and Haru nodded firmly.
Sasuke would have liked to keep following the conversation, if his focus hadn't been completely derailed by the intensity of Killer B's stare fixed squarely on him.
"They didn't seem to attack you," he said in a serious tone that lacked any trace of rhythm or melody, almost accusatory.
Everyone turned to look at him fully.
The Uchiha sighed. "I suspected my blood might not be… worthy," he said in an openly mocking tone before adding—his gaze locking directly onto the Jinchūriki—"I assumed they wouldn't attack you either. But it seems you don't enjoy the same privilege."
He knew the comment was risky.
The implication was subtle enough for anyone who didn't want to read into it, but for someone truly attuned to the situation… it was impossible to miss what he was hinting at.
Which made it bold even by his standards.
To declare—or even suggest—that he might be a Jinchūriki too was throwing a spear far beyond reason when his suspicions were still in their earliest stages. But part of testing his theory meant exposing it to an actual Jinchūriki and gauging his reaction, hoping he would understand what was being said between the lines.
Unfortunately, Killer B's response was far too ambiguous to be of any real use.
"Maybe they just don't attack your kind," he said, adjusting the swords in their sheaths, offering no further clue as to whether he had understood the subtext at all.
Sasuke had no choice but to stare at him as if he hated him to death, though he doubted Killer B would understand that either.
"Either way," the Uchiha said, lifting his gaze and following the violent path of lightning and roiling clouds toward the place where everything seemed to thin out at the center. To the naked eye, there was no sign of a clearing there, but he had to trust the people who had lived on this island all their lives. "We're wasting time here. We need to move."
Samui raised her voice, addressing only her own group. "All these people can't come with us," she declared with irritation in her tone. "They'll slow us down and get in the way the entire time."
Sasuke liked her.
But before anyone could say anything, Ayame shouted, "Brother!"
And from within the crowd, the man who had asserted himself as the leader earlier turned immediately toward her.
It was obvious now that Sasuke looked at them properly. The two of them shared practically the same features.
"You protect the villagers while we go to the Storm!" the younger one ordered him, her voice ringing out with such authority that everyone turned toward them in confusion. Sasuke watched as the older man's face twisted into pure horror for a few fleeting seconds.
All the warriors—who had very little interest in dying—began to stir at the elder's silence, agitation spreading through them like wildfire. They demanded him to listen to her. They demanded him to let her go.
And Sasuke felt his blood begin to boil.
He could not believe their selfishness. Their lack of decency. Their lack of humanity.
They were asking a brother to sacrifice his only family, his last living relative from his clan, practically still a child. They were cornering him, pressing him against an invisible wall, insisting that he choose his people over the only person he had left in this world.
Everything in the man's eyes gave him away. He was already grieving. Already bracing himself for the loss. As if, by allowing her to step forward, he was condemning her. As if he were watching her die in advance.
And Sasuke could not stand it.
"She'll be fine," he said loudly, cutting cleanly through the worthless comments. The Kumogakure shinobi looked startled, and so did the older brother, whom Sasuke was directly addressing. "She'll be with me. Don't worry."
From a distance, the Uchiha saw the tension drain from the man's shoulders. Not completely, but enough to show that he was choosing to trust his sister over the instinct screaming at him to protect her at all costs.
Sasuke understood that feeling very well.
And he would not betray it for anything in the world.
*
As expected, the path toward the center was crawling with those entities, swarming them from every possible angle. Once again, Sasuke and Ayame were the only ones able to move ahead freely, the only ones the Storm seemed to tolerate and allowed to advance while the others were forced to tear through the creatures in their wake. Even so, any of the things that crossed directly into his path, Sasuke destroyed without pause.
He wasn't entirely sure what he had imagined the 'barrier' separating the Storm from the clearing would look like, but it certainly hadn't been a sheer, sudden fucking ravine, dropping away into a chasm choked with fog so dense it swallowed the end of it whole.
There was no way to see what lay beyond it. No hint of the supposed calm waiting on the other side.
Still—not that they had much time to process it.
The moment they reached the edge, exactly what they had been warned about happened.
Here, it wasn't just that the entities were larger and more feral, it was that the lightning itself seemed to be targeting them deliberately, striking the ground with vicious precision. So much so that, in a sharp and decisive motion, Killer B moved to the center of the now fully gathered group and transformed into the Eight-Tails, using his massive body to shield them from the lightning, wrapping his tentacles around them and forming a crude but effective shelter.
Everyone was enclosed.
Everyone except Sasuke.
The instant he realized what Bee was doing, he shoved Ayame away from himself and slipped out before the Hachibi could close the barrier completely.
And now that no one was watching…
"Get inside, Uchiha!" the Eight-Tails barked, its massive head twisting to fix him with a sharp glare as lightning crashed relentlessly against its body. The voice was nothing like Bee's; it was the beast itself speaking. "I'm going to fire a bijūdama and wipe these things out in one shot!"
"There's no point," Sasuke called back, raising his voice over the roar of thunder and rain as he watched the creatures begin to pile up, their focus locked solely on the Hachibi. "They'll keep spawning as long as The Storm remains."
"We know. But the time it takes them to reform would buy us a window. Long enough to cross the barrier!"
To be honest, his logic was completely sound.
If it weren't for the fact that Sasuke had a better idea.
He stepped close enough to extend his hand and press his palm against the Eight-Tail's massive body. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, jaw tightening as he tried to figure out how the fuck this was even supposed to work.
During the war, Sasuke had spent long stretches with his Sharingan active, unconsciously recording every detail during the moments when Naruto and Bee had demonstrated their unique jinchūriki abilities. And if his calculations were right, if his theories weren't just self-indulgent delusions, then he should be able to do it, too.
He should be able to use those memories to copy the technique. Very much in the same way Kakashi did.
So long as the technique itself fell within the physical limits of the body attempting to replicate it, it was entirely possible.
"So?!" the Eight-Tails snapped, breaking his concentration—and with good reason. When Sasuke opened his eyes again, a horde of entities had already lunged toward them.
Well, toward the Hachibi, really.
And that was when it finally happened.
When Sasuke was struck and thrown violently aside by an attack meant for the beast—caught in the blast purely because of his proximity—whatever he had been trying to do had already taken hold.
A red, beast-shaped shroud surged over his body, enveloping him and the Eight-Tails completely.
Suddenly, the creatures froze mid-motion, as if confused. The lightning followed suit, no longer striking down around them or at them.
The Storm still raged. The manifestations were still there.
But they had become invisible to it.
"What…?" the Eight-Tails muttered, staring at Sasuke, who was now seated on the ground where he had landed after the impact.
But before he could say something to excuse himself, a sharp, unpleasant burn flared through his arm. Instinctively, he looked down.
He must have taken the brunt of the attack with his arm without thinking, and somehow it had been cut. Blood soaked into the fabric of his sleeve.
But… just as his suspicion had already told him would happen, the wound sealed itself shut in seconds, knitting the flesh together as if it had never been there at all, leaving only the blood already spilled behind.
Of course, Killer B had seen everything.
And he was waiting for an answer.
"…Uhm," the Uchiha said, pushing himself to his feet slowly. "Don't get any ideas—I didn't know either. I wouldn't have thrown myself into this mess if I had."
The Eight-Tails' head stared at him in complete silence, mouth hanging open, eyes—already unnervingly wide by nature—now blown impossibly larger, as if trying to process something that simply refused to make sense.
Which, to be fair, it didn't.
Sasuke figured that, in their place, he wouldn't have known where to even begin either.
"Huh," it finally let out, sounding more resigned than anything else, as if it had decided to accept the insanity rather than fight it. "You think you can do that with the others too?"
Sasuke considered it for a moment. "Yeah, but—"
But I'm not ready for them to know the truth.
But I'm not ready for what they'll say.
But I'm not ready for the questions.
But I'm not ready for what they'll think about Naruto.
But I'm not ready for the conclusions I know they'll draw once they connect the dots.
And then, cutting through every single one of those thoughts in one brutal stroke, the Hachibi laughed. The sound was so sudden that Sasuke blinked, genuinely thrown off, watching as one of its massive hands extended forward, curling his fingers into a fist that stopped just inches from his face.
He stared at it, waiting and confused, until the memory of Naruto doing this exact same thing surfaced.
Slowly, he brought his own fist up and pressed it against the Eight-Tails'.
And the moment he did, his heart nearly stopped.
"Rule number one, ya fool," Killer B's voice echoed directly inside his damn head. "When you share the cloak, thoughts bleed through, walls get thin—anyone inside can peek where your mind goes, what's yours might leak."
Sasuke went rigid.
Memories of the war slammed into him all at once—Naruto accidentally broadcasting his feelings to the entire shinobi alliance.
About him.
"…Shit," he breathed.
"Rule number two," the Jinchūriki went on. "You and me can talk like this, fist to fist, up close, locked in—that's how we sync. But that long-distance mind-chat—that's Naruto's gig, fool. That ain't your way."
A distant thunderclap cracked through the storm and snapped the Uchiha out of his momentary shock.
"So then…" he started… thinking? Saying it inwardly? The line blurred before it could settle.
Killer B laughed again. "Look, fool—ya fool. I don't know how you pulled this power, how you made it come through, but my bro' Naruto ain't stupid, believe that's true. If he shared it with you, then you earned your way in, means you're worthy of it, means you're solid within."
The cadence softened, just slightly.
"And if you're scared of what the others might see, then there's gotta be something noble you're trying to keep. A line you won't bend. And for that kind of silence, you got my respect."
Sasuke had no answer.
Yes, Killer B was being good to him, showing him support even without fully understanding the situation, even though Sasuke didn't deserve it from him, all because of his trust in Naruto.
He should have felt relieved that the first person to discover this was Bee, but this was also the first time the truth had been so uncomfortably close. Everything now hung by a single, fragile thread. One missing piece was all Bee needed to connect the rest.
He forced his thoughts down, buried them as deep as he could manage.
He wasn't about to repeat Naruto's mistake.
He already carried enough shame of his own without dragging someone else into the chaos of his head.
Fortunately, Bee kept going.
"This is how we play it, listen up, ya fool," he started. "My chakra and the fox's look near the same when it's just a cloak, when it's surface flame. So you'll drop your cloak, step back with the rest, make contact, blend in with the mess, and I'll fake passing the cloak, when really, it'll be you doing it. Got that?"
Sasuke focused, forcing his thoughts into something resembling a coherent line, something he wouldn't have bothered doing if his mind weren't already exposed.
"I don't know if it'll work," he admitted. "This is the first time I've ever tried."
"Then take your time and try it anyway, ya fool," Bee replied easily. "The girl wasn't getting hit just standing by your side, right? Maybe sticking close makes those things think you've already picked your prey—so they don't bother… yeah."
The logic wasn't flawless, but it was solid enough for Sasuke to fall silent, nod once, and move, deciding that testing the theory was better than standing still while the storm closed in around them.
The Eight-Tails pulled his fist back, and in the same motion his massive form began to fold in on itself until Killer B stood there once more in his human body. The shift prompted everyone to gather closer, just as Sasuke did, committing fully to the act.
And before anyone could even think to question what was happening, Bee raised his voice, deliberately loud, deliberately theatrical, drowning out any doubts before they could surface.
"Came up with an easier way to keep you safe, ya fools," he announced, in a tone so exaggerated it nearly made Sasuke physically recoil. The acting was so obvious it hurt. "Right now, I'm gonna wrap you all up in my spectacular, incredible Bijū chakra! That way, the storm—"
Sasuke stopped listening.
He physically could not take it.
Instead, he focused with everything he had on every point of contact, and tried to replicate exactly what he'd done earlier.
And he did.
Just… slowly.
Painfully slowly.
Which gave Bee more time to talk.
Which made Sasuke want to dig a hole in the ground and bury himself in it.
"Tah-dah!" the jinchūriki declared like an idiot once everyone was finally covered, and Sasuke found himself wondering whether being a moron came as part of being a jinchūriki package or if he had simply been unfortunate enough to meet the most irritating ones.
"Well," Shikamaru was the first to speak, lifting his hands and inspecting the cloak draped over his body. "Never thought I'd end up wrapped in this stuff again."
Sai nodded beside him, smiling faintly as he examined the mantle as well. "It feels weaker, don't you think? I felt stronger when I was wrapped in the fox's chakra."
Sasuke stared at them with a murderous expression that promised several violent outcomes. But in a move so painfully obvious it forced the Uchiha to remember to rein in his thoughts, Bee grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him closer against his chest, grinning broadly as if he had just won something.
"That's 'cause it ain't the fox's chakra!" he crowed, rhythm snapping back into his voice. "It's mine!"
And he earned—again—one of Sasuke's death glares for that, the Uchiha still unable to believe just how terrible an actor the jinchūriki was.
Sasuke then broke away sharply, setting off toward the dense wall of fog with a sense of urgency that was impossible to miss. Part of it was sheer exhaustion from the whole spectacle; the other part was the very real uncertainty of how long he could keep this up, borrowing chakra that was never meant to be his in the first place.
He had seen it firsthand. Naruto, with reserves that bordered on the absurd and a beast actively replenishing his chakra in real time, could still be pushed to the brink by prolonged use. And if Sasuke's theory was even remotely correct, then what wrapped around him now wasn't a true wellspring, but residue. Something finite that, once spent, would drain away entirely.
How he had obtained it, though, was still a mystery.
Or maybe he simply refused to accept what the voices in the back of his mind were already shouting at him. He couldn't afford to face that now, not while he was forcing every stray thought and emotion into rigid control.
*
Indeed, once they passed through the fog, it was as if an entirely new world unfolded before them. In fact, because of the mantle, Sasuke could vividly feel Ayame's and Haru's excitement thrumming through him as they descended the ravine, both of them staring around with open, unguarded awe.
It was a strange sensation, invasive in a way he didn't like, to sense emotions that weren't his own so clearly, but he chose not to pay much attention to the others, in the same way he wouldn't want them picking up on his own emotions.
The place itself was anything but paradisiacal, nor was it even remotely beautiful, though Sasuke hadn't expected it to be. It was true that the rain no longer fell here, but the wind still howled relentlessly, and the air remained heavy.
Trees that must have once been alive stood burned and petrified, frozen in time. What little evidence of a former civilization existed had been charred and eroded by centuries, leaving behind only fragmented hints of how its people might have lived or what kind of society they might have built.
It looked like the aftermath of a war, one that had scorched the land thousands of years ago.
And yet, none of that compared to what dominated the center of the clearing.
A massive tower rose from the earth, colossal and imposing, crowned by a vast and partially shattered dome at its peak. The rest of the structure was worn down, gnawed at by time and neglect, but it still stood.
"The blast must've come from there," Ayame said once they reached the bottom and her feet touched the grass of this new land, her words snapping Sasuke back to the reason they were here in the first place.
The light.
The explosion.
Of course. That tower had to be the place he had seen in his vision.
And yet…
Sasuke deactivated the fox's cloak once he was certain the area was safe enough, and let his gaze travel up and down the tower again, tightening his jaw as he tried to figure out which of those countless floors the damned kunai could possibly be on. And, more importantly, how the hell he was supposed to find it before anyone else did.
That was when Ayame's abilities came back to him.
"Ayame," he called, turning toward her. She reacted instantly, her head snapping in his direction. "Do you still sense the same chakra signatures here?"
She seemed to focus on the tower ahead of them, her posture going still for a moment before she shook her head. "I don't feel anything here beyond our presence."
That alone seemed to ease the tension across the group. People began to spread out slightly, wandering through the vast open space and picking through fragments of the surrounding ruins, objects Sasuke assumed they planned to examine more carefully later.
What he hadn't expected was for Killer B to use the distraction to drift closer, matching Sasuke's stride with faked casualty. The rest of the group fell a few steps behind as they continued toward the tower.
"I'll admit," he murmured, eyes casually scanning the landscape as if it genuinely caught his interest, "It's impressive… An Uchiha carrying the fox's chakra… I'm pretty sure Konoha wouldn't have signed off on that."
"Nobody, okay?" Sasuke cut in immediately, the edge in his voice sharp enough to betray his anger despite his attempt to keep it down. "This is just a mistake. That's all. Once the residual chakra in my body runs out, everything will go back to normal."
"And you'll die."
They kept walking.
Several long, unbearable steps passed after Bee's words, as if nothing out of the ordinary had been said at all.
Sasuke could feel his legs starting to tremble.
"'And I'll die'?" he repeated at last, forcing an evenness into his tone.
"I'm curious how Naruto managed to transfer the fox's chakra into you without killing you in the process," the other continued as if he hadn't heard Sasuke's question at all. "Or how he made sure you wouldn't die once it runs out. Sometimes I'm amazed by how brilliant that kid can be."
Cold sweat prickled along Sasuke's spine.
"Konoha killed hundreds of people before they found a vessel who could withstand the fox's chakra—before they reached Mito Uzumaki and concluded that members of her clan were the most suitable, even if many of them died in the attempt," Bee went on. "And Naruto managed to do it safely with you? And on top of that, pass you enough that you can even wrap a large team in a cloak? Seriously, kid, you two never stop surprising me."
As he kept walking, Sasuke began to feel the relentless heat in his stomach intensify, spreading through his body until it reached his throat and left him with the faintest urge to vomit. Easy enough to ignore, yet impossible to deny.
He had felt sick for days now, and it was only getting worse. He tried not to dwell on it, tried to focus on anything else, but the truth was that whenever something—or someone—reminded him of it, he could feel something growing inside him. Something that was definitely not right.
"Naruto didn't do anything. I told you, this is a mistake," he said with a slightly weaker voice, edged with uncertainty as he tried to cut the conversation short and make one thing clear: Naruto had nothing to do with this—at least not intentionally.
God knew what accusations of betrayal or corruption the Uzumaki might face if Sasuke allowed the narrative to stand that he had willingly given him the fox's chakra.
"Naruto has nothing to do with this."
"Oh."
Bee looked at him again, but this time, he stopped walking entirely, coming to a full halt.
Sasuke stopped as well, because what he was feeling in his stomach was torturing him and his head would not stop spinning.
He needed answers, he truly did. He needed to tell someone, urgently, what was happening to him. He needed to say it out loud, to admit what was happening without fearing that the others would uncover his secret. Without fearing that something would happen to Naruto because of it.
He needed Killer B to understand, to tell him what to do.
He needed help.
He needed Naruto.
Fuck.
He needed Naruto so much.
The rest of the group was only a few steps behind, close enough that it was obvious their attention was fully locked on the two of them, and Sasuke did not know whether the concern on their faces was because he was clearly failing to hide his desperation or simply because they did not understand what was happening.
"Naruto doesn't know about this?" the jinchūriki asked, just to confirm. His tone was impossible to read, hovering somewhere between alarmed and deeply concerned.
Sasuke let the silence stretch as the others finally caught up, their eyes darting from Bee to Sasuke, trying to piece together what they were hearing without daring to interrupt.
"No," the Uchiha said at last. "Or at least… I don't think he does."
"What are you talking about?" Samui demanded, one hand settling at her hip. "What happened?"
She got no answer.
Bee simply lowered his arms, abandoning his thoughtful posture, and stared at Sasuke through his sunglasses, saying nothing at all for a whole minute.
"Kid…" he finally murmured, carrying a mix of pity and dread in his voice. "You shouldn't be here."
Sasuke held Bee's gaze for a few seconds longer, fully aware that, in the Jinchūriki's mind, his fate was already sealed.
And maybe, deep down, he felt the same.
He didn't want to die.
But, if he didn't know how much time he had left and if his death was as inevitable as Bee seemed to believe, then he might as well make things easier for the rest of them. At least let them know what the hell they were supposed to do.
He truly didn't want to die.
He exhaled slowly and shifted his gaze back to the tower, an instinct the others mirrored without even realizing it.
Sasuke really—truly—did not want to die.
"When I passed out," he began, deliberately neutral, drawing everyone's attention. "I woke up in a dark, unfamiliar corridor. The floor was flooded, and pipes ran along the walls." He glanced back at them. "I followed it until I reached a door that led me into a massive chamber. In the center there was a structure with four pillars surrounding some kind of circular core, covered in seals and engravings. And right in the middle, there was a kunai embedded."
"But it was just a dream, right?" Omoi cut in, sounding impatient, as if he were eager for the story to wrap up so they could move on with the expedition.
The interruption irritated the Uchiha, though he couldn't entirely blame him. Besides, he saw no point in getting angry now that he was going to die.
"That's what I thought," he admitted. "But when I tried to pull the kunai out, I was… attacked, for lack of a better word, by some kind of strange, dense liquid." He looked down at his own hand, opening and closing his fingers as he remembered the sensation of it wrapping around him. "I managed to take the kunai anyway. And the moment I did, everything detonated. The center lit up, and a beam of light shot upward, tearing through the ceiling—and then I woke up."
"What?" Haru stepped forward, Ayame doing the same at his side.
"A few seconds after I woke up," Sasuke continued, unfazed by how everyone's posture had shifted into something tense and defensive, "there was that massive explosion that forced everyone out of the residence. And judging by the villagers' descriptions of the light that burst out from the center of the island, both the details and the timing line up with what I saw." He raised a finger, pointing directly at the shattered dome crowning the tower. "Ayame was right. That beam had to come from there. And the place I was in had to be somewhere inside that tower." He lowered his hand and looked back at the group.
Almost immediately, Samui was the first to react, with barely restrained fury. She stepped forward sharply, only to be stopped when Killer B threw an arm out in front of her, blocking her path.
"And you're only telling us now, you idiot?" she snapped.
Sasuke could only think that she wasn't entirely wrong.
"I didn't say anything because I don't know what it means either," he said in his defense. "I wanted to believe it was just a dream and a big coincidence. But now… I'm not so sure," His eyes flicked back to the tower.
"But then—" Haru started, turning to the others with urgency bleeding into his voice. "What are we still standing around for?! Let's go!"
Shikamaru shut that enthusiasm down instantly, lifting a hand as if to physically halt everyone's thoughts mid-charge. "Even if—thanks to Ayame—we know there are no enemies nearby," he said calmly, "we also know there's a place with some kind of thick, abnormal liquid that attacks when you get close. A trap."
"And if there's a site important enough to trigger a reaction like that," Sai added, stepping in smoothly, "then the tower is likely riddled with defensive mechanisms meant to keep us from reaching whatever center Sasuke saw."
"Then let's see it!" Haru insisted, moving to stand between them. "We're wasting time talking!"
"No," Sasuke cut in sharply. "They're right. Whatever I activated had a direct effect on the storm. That means we have to assume that place is controlling it."
Haru and Ayame both turned toward him, surprise written plainly across their faces as if the realization were only now clicking into place.
"This area seems stable," Sasuke went on. "It might be better if you stay here while—"
He never got to finish.
A sudden, vicious wave of nausea slammed into him without warning, stealing the air from his lungs. He clapped his hand over his mouth and dropped to his knees, every muscle in his body locking up as he desperately fought to keep it down.
Killer B was at his side almost instantly, one hand braced against Sasuke's chest and the other gripping his shoulder to keep him upright, murmuring questions that Sasuke couldn't process, nor answer.
After a few seconds—mercifully—the worst of it passed, and the Uchiha managed to steady his breathing, forcing the nausea back down until it receded enough for him to push himself upright again.
When he opened his eyes, everyone was surrounding him, their expressions tight with concern.
Shit.
"I'm fine. I'm fine," he said quickly, waving a hand to get them to stop looking at him like that. "Let's just… go to the tower already."
"Are you sure you're okay, boy?" Killer B asked.
But Sasuke had already turned away. If he stayed there one second longer, if he let that question sink any deeper, he might shatter.
He did not want to die.
Not like this. Not now.
What he truly—desperately—needed in this moment was to see Naruto again. To be pulled into his arms and held there like something worth protecting.
He needed, with a hunger that clawed at his ribs, to go back to the last time they had stood face to face and erase that look from Naruto's eyes.
More than anything in the world, he wanted one more chance.
One more chance to tell him that he had always loved him. That he was about to die, and that the only thought burning through his mind was not fear or regret, but love. For him. That he wanted to stay. That he wanted a future. That he wanted mornings tangled together. That he wanted to fall asleep listening to Naruto's heartbeat beneath his ear. That he wanted to kiss him at dawn and watch those bright blue eyes struggle open.
Tears burned down his face, hot and humiliating, but he was far enough ahead that no one would see.
He hated himself.
Sasuke was going to die without ever telling Naruto the truth.
That it had never been just sex. That he had violently fallen in love the very first stupid second he saw the blond balance a fucking chalkboard eraser above a door just to prank Kakashi, grinning like an idiot as it fell, before either of them knew what love even was.
Naruto would never know that when Sasuke left the village with Orochimaru, his heart had already been in pieces. That when he saw Naruto fight through impossible odds just to reach him and drag him back, he had to suffocate every trembling emotion inside his chest to avoid collapsing into the humiliation of surrender.
Naruto would never know that Sasuke was grateful to be alive. That every single day he thanked him in silence for saving him. For never letting go. For refusing to give up on him when he had given up on himself. That walking beside him felt like something sacred, something he did not deserve but cherished anyway.
Naruto would never know that Sasuke wanted to hold his hand in the middle of the village street. That whenever he met someone new during his travels, he had to physically stop himself from saying his name with pride. That he wanted to refer to him as his boyfriend. That he wanted to belong to him openly, and he wanted Naruto to say it too without hesitation.
Sasuke was going to die without ever giving him that.
Without ever saying the words out loud.
And the world would never hear it—from his own mouth—that Sasuke Uchiha loved Naruto Uzumaki with every single cell of his being.
N