Chapter Text
Naruto sits in a downtrodden group filled with the last remaining friends and strangers-turned-friends still alive in this ongoing war.
Talking quietly amongst themselves in hushed whispers and flaring chakra.
Some can’t help it, they’re distressed, excited. About? Well just the fact that another shinobi had found a storage seal on the ground of one of the past battlefields.
Surprising as theres so many that they’d just so happened to stumble across it on a supply trip.
Shikamaru glances towards the blonde sitting at the head of the group, a pensive, tired expression clouding the usually sunny teen.
The Nara leans back on his hands and exhales a breath that captures the attention of everyone, settling them down.
Good to know he still has that affect on people.
“Naruto, what do you suppose we do about this?”
Shikamaru raises a brow, lazily tilting his head towards the seal layed out in front of everyone.
Naruto scratches at his whiskers as he snaps out of the trance he’d put himself into. Talking to Kurama about what it is no doubt.
“I think, hm. Well, there’s really only one thing to do, yanno?”
Naruto suddenly has this deeply mischievous smirk on his face, Shikamaru blandly remarks to only himself that this looks more natural on the Jinchuriki.
“And what, pray tell, might that be, dobe.” Sasuke snarks, his arms crossed over his chest at the right of the blonde.
“We use it of course!” Naruto exclaims. Immediately followed by a slightly too loud “No!” From the entire circle even though some had probably already thought the same.
“Are you stupid!? We barely know what it does and you just want to try and use it with the possibility of it exploding in your face or killing us all?” Sasuke hisses, Sakura looking seconds away from trying to smack some sense into the seemingly suicidal idiot of a leader they have.
Kami save us, Kakashi why’d you leave us alone with him? Shikamaru can’t help but think as he feels a headache brewing already.
Naruto pouts as Sakura gives into the urge and hits him upside the head hard enough for Naruto to feel the bump starting to form.
“Well it’s better than sitting here doing nothing isn’t it? You saw how little we’re managing to scrounge up recently! Any less and we’re not gonna have enough energy to fight anymore!”
Naruto cries out quickly, rushing out the words as his eyes take on a squinty quality.
Shikamaru’s lip twitches into the beginnings of an used smirk before he tampers it down and tries to shove it to the darkest corners of his mind.
“He right you know.”
The Nara speaks up over the rising chorus of exclaimations and yelling.
“This is our one chance to get everything back to normal, even if we’re not aware it ever wasn’t.”
Shikamaru pauses, Naruto’s grinning at him now, glad to have someone see his logic, even if it isn’t all that logical.
“This scroll, if it does as we think, could save at least one timeline from experiencing what we have. Depending on how far back it goes… there could be no possibility for war at all.”
There’s a murmur of begrudging agreement between Sakura and Sasuke, he can almost imagine Neji nodding along had he been in his right mind.
As it is, the Edo Tensei had brought him back and he wasn’t very pleasant to be around.
They’d hunted him down and locked him up in their current hide out but soon they’ll have to leave and who knows what’ll happen then.
Shikamaru sighs as Naruto pipes up again.
“Sooooo…” He starts slyly, looking around the group at the odd teamates they’d gathered in this mind shattering world. “Who wants to go if it works?”
All he gets are blank, or expectant looks. Naruto blinks and his expression turns a little offended.
“Wha- me!? Oh come on!”
”You should have expected that to be honest, Kit.”
Kurama rumbles inside what little braincells Naruto’s got knocking around in there and Naruto pouts once again.
“Okay, I know it was my idea but come on, there’s no way you wanna send me over like- I don’t know, Sasuke! Or something.”
He ends lamely, his voice growing weaker as everyone just looks at eachother witb varying agreements including shrugs or outright whispered “Naruto should do it.” ‘s
Naruto sighs and plops on his back.
“This is soooooo not fair!”
Shikamaru just sighs, muttering a belated “Troublesome” under his breath.
__ . ___ . ___ . ___ . ___ . __
A few hours later they’ve got it all set up, and by that they mean they had Naruto draw the seal on the floor of their hideout and gotten into position.
Everyone at their agreed upon markers.
Six on the outside with Naruto in the middle.
“Alright, chakra exaustion levels of use, okay? It doesn’t matter if you stop before or after someone but try not to kill yourself doing this.”
Shikamaru advised, being the one with the most sealing knowledge out of the entire group, Naruto coming a close second as he’d taken to sealing like mice to cheese.Hungry for more and aching to be useful.
Sakura counts them down.
“Five.”
Everyone tenses, readying their chakra reserves.
“Four”
They all slowly start to feed their chakra into the seal from their positions, the chalra visible in the way the seal slowly, slowly starts glowing a pure white. Bright but not blinding.
Naruto also starts but rather than spreading the chakra outwards the seal pools it at his feet.
”Three”
He can’t help but shiver as the strands of his friends chalra slowly come in contact with the middle where he stands.
Two
Naruto starts getting worried, Sakura’s mouth isn’t moving, not from where he can see. Hopefully that’s just because of the steam rising from the second circle inside of the original seven circles on the outside.
One.
Like a barrier, the chakra suddenly sprouts overhead Naruto and he can’t help the flinch that wracks his body as he’s trapped.
“Shit.”
The Jinchuriki gets out of position and speeds to one of the walls. Pounding on it as he gets brief glimpses of his friends outside the barrier.
Some have collapsed, some are sitting recovering, others are still pushing their chakra into the seal.
“Guys stop! Let me out, now!”
But they don’t seem to hear.
Soon, all he can see as he sprints around the dome are the unconscious bodies of his teamates and a growing dread in his body as chakra keeps rushing into the seal.
It’s seeping them dry. It’s going to kill them and he can’t get out.
“Kurama! Get us out!”
”I can’t kid! Whatever this seal is it’s blocking me! It won’t even let me use my chakra to power it! It just won’t accept it!”
The Bijuu growls inside the mindscape, red chakra spreading behind Naruto’s back to claw at the barrier but it doesn’t nothing. If anything it seems to strengthen the barrier.
As he sees the last of his teamates collapse he can do nothing but watch as the dome slowly gets smaller and smaller around him.
Pushing him closer and closer to the middle where the seventh circle is.
Once he’s in it he curls into a ball, the dome too small to even stand in now.
Tears collect in Naruto’s eyes.
A sharp pain making itself known in his chest before everything goes black.