1,703A/N: ... I am sick and tired of these glitches. T_T
No one is able to read or review because of chapters disappearing!
Which means nearly no feedback, which means sad writer.
That's a real spirit breaker, it's enough to make a man want to retire, because this site keeps breaking down….
As promised. Slifer helped bring this masterpiece to life.
Just wanted to say, I appreciate you all! More feedback means faster updates! It's especially important, in these trying times, with all the glitches. Every word counts and all these reviews really keep me inspired! Looking forward to hearing from you~!
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In conclusion! I'm usually updating six out of seven days a week. That takes a lot out of me. Why do I do it, you ask? Because entertaining people keeps me sane, ironically.
As ever, I own no references, quotes, themes or memes. They're tributes to legends far greater than little 'ol me.
I'm just a humble author trying to make his way in this wild world, one word at a time.
Time and feedback will determine if this remains a story. Simple as that.
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Brace yourself. This IS Game of Thrones, after all...
"Long May He Reign.
~?
Long May He Reign
Burning was a bad way to go.
In a world that was defined by seemingly never ending wars and brief lapses of peace, you would think that the murderously minded and violently inclined would have come across some other way to off someone in a more painful way. And in truth, there were, depending on your frame of reference. Failing to be saved was perhaps a close second, retching on a surgeon's table begging to be saved as your lungs filled with blood, fouled by creeping sepsis. That was what Sakura had always mused was the worst way to go, where all participants were willing for life but the creeping hand of fate pushed the body towards inevitable death.
Frankly, Naruto couldn't agree.
Because right now he was on fire, black flames eating into his chest cavity with roaring eagerness.
Yes sir, burning was a bad way to go, and it looked like it would be how he went.
Roasted alive, cooked from the inside out.
It sucked, but there it was; Sasuke had gotten the drop on him. Their final battle had been a brutal thing, scarring the lands far more than it scarred their bodies. Their titanic battle avatars of Susanoo and Kurama had lasted for hours, the final conflagration of Indra's Arrow and his twin Rasenshurikens had probably punched a hole in the Ozone layer that would cause some problems in a few decades. Naruto would hardly be around to complain that the summers were getting too hot.
He was plenty hot right now. He coughed a gobbet of boiling blood from his throat, another of Saskue's Kagutuschi spiking into his lungs and licking at the fragile network of circulatory system, his Bronchiole network was rendered to smouldering tinder in a matter of seconds.
And by the Sage, the Log, all the gods above and demons bellow, IT HURT.
It was a paradox of sensation, devilishly fast and agonisingly slow, burning him from within. Running wildfire within his form, all of his nerves screamed until they reached a din of pain that his mind couldn't take. But shock would not take it into its cold embrace to dull the pain, no, the black flames were insidious little things. Sasuke may have cast them and directed them, but the onyx plasma seemed to have a mind of its own, a mind that bore a grudge against the blonde.
Truth be told, it was hard to call Naruto blonde at this point, his entire head was wreathed in black fire that roared with the wrath of a storm even as his ears melted like tallow.
Despite it all, Naruto felt bizarrely serene. In inhuman pain that was growing worse as he disintegrated, but aye, serene.
He looked towards his killer, his blue eye hauntingly piercing through the midnight conflagration as his aqueous humour began to boil in their orbits, lending a hazy quality to his vision. Sasuke looked much like Naruto felt, missing an arm and a patchwork of black and blue. The last Uchiha's face was a rictus of effort and pain, lips swollen as blood dribbled down from his eyes in an effort to keep the Amaterasu going. His Rinnegan had gone inert and was relying on his bloodshot EMS to direct the already cast Amaterasu.
In fact, it was, by Naruto's own account, 'a dick move.'
He didn't hold it against him; he'd simply won their final fight. He'd given it all. Everything he had.
17 years of life carrying a millennia of enmity on their backs, they had feuded over on the way the world should go now that it had the chance to start anew. The Mother of Chakra was gone, the world was asleep and the Father of Ninshu had left the path the world would take in their hands. Sasuke had favoured revolution, a world where all would be united in their hatred of him. Naruto had chosen resolution, offering a hand to let the Shinobi try something new. It was an impasse that could not be quelled with words, so they had taken it to the oldest crucible of decision making. Violence.
Brother against brother. Ideal to ideal. They hadn't held anything back, and for the full day that they had fought they laid bear their souls to one another. Naruto had been brash, Sasuke cold. And in the end, after a final clash, Naruto had simply been a second too slow.
Again, he was serene despite the fire. Because… well he had tried his hardest and lost. Now came his reward.
When one knew beyond all reasonable doubt that there was an afterlife and you went there no matter how heinous your crimes in life were, the bitter pill of death became much easier to swallow.
Naruto heard a splash in front of him that coincided with another lash of pain. It seemed that the fire had finally taken one of his legs off. The splash ignited something in him, something he couldn't place.
Regrets? He had a few, but they didn't weigh him down. He firmly believed his old friend would come to his senses.
After all, he'd looked so shocked when his final gambit had worked.
"Just… burn away, my only friend." Sasuke whispered, carrying over the howl and roar of black flame.
One by one, Naruto's senses began to fail him, subsumed by the feeling of burning. And finally, with nothing in his heart or mind but his own abstract bemusement, he died.
The nothingness that followed was something that Naruto had expected, after all he had been left on the precipice of life and death enough to recognise the cold wind of the underworld on the back of his neck.
But…
'It's not cold.' Naruto thought, still seeing nothing but black fire. 'It's… warm.' he added gilbly before being caught by just how lacking those base descriptors were. It felt so much deeper and more meaningful than that. But he had nothing else to really compare it to.
He saw fire
He smelled fire
He tasted fire
He heard fire
And above all, he felt fire.
'But no burning…what the hell?'
It was true, while Naruto was still subsumed by fire in every facet, it was robbed from the physical horror of burning. In fact without the sensoria of his degrading physical form it felt like nothing he had ever felt before, but was somehow strangely familiar. Naruto felt like he was caught in a riptide of liquid that was too light to be water but too heavy to be gas. A susurrus of passing gales that struck him from all angles, passing through him as much as around him.
And then, slowly, he found himself somewhere else.
Instead of the fragor blasted ruins of the Final Valley now stood a space of darkness that stretched out in all directions infinitely, with only the immediate surroundings hewed in dark yellow light. And at its centre stood a pillar of black fire as tall as a man.
Black fire pulled away from him slowly, gingerly, perhaps gently even, leaving a figure to stand upon a plane of water, sending out ripples from his presence. Reflected in the water was an ethereal figure made of wispy golden light, vaguely humanoid in that it possessed a 'head' with characteristic spiky 'hair'. Naruto turned his head to examine the place, overcome with familiarity.
'This is…'
"The threshold." a rich and aged voice spoke from the darkness, tinged with melancholy. "I had hoped that you would not come here again so soon, Naruto, let alone with no way back."
Turning his blank un-face in the direction of the voice, Naruto was surprised to see a pair of eyes staring back at him in metallic purple rings. "Old Man Sage," he greeted warmly. He raised a hand to scratch his head in embarrassment before realising that he no longer had hands to scratch with.
Hagoromo Otsutsuki's lined face cracked upwards in a wan smile, recognising the awkward and meandering movements of the wispy gold spirit for what they were. "You don't seem perplexed to see me. A far cry from our first meeting less than a day ago," he said, stroking his long beard. As before, and from Naruto's perspective, as always, the Sage floated a foot off the ground, sat upon an invisible seat suspended by a ring of Truth Seeker Orbs.
Naruto gave a figurative shrug, the golden strands of wispy substance undulating. "I died, you were here last time I nearly died. I guess this time I know what it's called now. Sounds kinda ominous."
"Heh," the older spirit allowed himself a lone exhalation of mirth, his alien eyes twinkling in fondness. "You do really remind me of Asura at times, Naruto."
"I mean, yeah he should. He's me right? Or I'm him?" Naruto replied, puzzled at the particulars of the reincarnation process.
Again the old sage laughed. After a moment he raised his hands and showed them to Naruto, revealing the sun and moon marks returned to their proper places.
Naruto sobered at that. "It's done then."
"It is," Hagoromo gave a nod in assent, "My mother is likely to never return, and the brothers' feud is at an end… I confess myself somewhat dissatisfied with the outcome." he said quietly, causing Naruto to fix him with a disapproving glare. "Oh, do not mistake my idle thoughts for evaluating the way you achieved an end. I find your acceptance of death to be a trait that all those who seek enlightenment must come to terms with."
"Then what's bothering you old man?"
"Is it so evil of me to have not wanted to watch one of my sons die one more time?" Hagoromo replied rhetorically.
The golden soul considered it quietly, his thoughts seeming to echo in this no-place. Finally he replied, "No. It proves you're human. Or at least that you have humanity."
Hagoromo opened his mouth to respond but nothing emerged, he shut it, then opened it again. The floating Shakujo behind him had completed a full orbit of him before the silence finally broke again. "That… is the kindest thing any have said to me. The libations of godhood I never asked for are nothing to the assurance that I am what I have always aspired to be…one of you."
Naruto 'blushed', "Ah cut it out you super geezer, I'm just saying what's the truth."
"Truth, eh? I'm content with that."
Silence passed between them again, pregnant and easy. Naruto allowed the sage his moment to mourn and celebrate, even if it was done in sepulchral silence.
Finally the Sage spoke again, addressing Naruto. "I suppose you are wondering why you're here and not with your parents in the Pure Realm."
Naruto nodded, while he had come close to death far too many times he assumed that the actual process of dying and moving on was a quick one. Yet here he was, on the threshold. Whatever the threshold was. "I assumed there'd at least be a bright light," he offered, feigning humour.
"There usually is. But… there have been complications brought on by the way you have ended." the Sage trailed off. Naruto remained silent and let the horned humanoid continue. "Your acceptance of your end with no regret ends Asura's reincarnation process and and he can be at rest. But as the 'end point', the system of transmigration cannot truly come to an end until both Asura and Indra's reincarnations are sent to the Pure Realm…"
Hearing that, Naruto began to think, even if he couldn't initially grasp the complexities of it. The mechanism of reincarnation was finished, but the process of transmigration could not be finished until Sasuke met his final end. And that meant-
'Now that I have awakened the RInnegan; immortality, reincarnation, I have many options available to me.' Sasuke's voice spoke from his memory.
It clicked.
"MOTHER FUCKER!" Naruto yelled, the golden winds composing his form affecting as much of a rude gesture as it was possible.
Wincing at the profanity, Hagoromo nodded grimly. "You seem to grasp the truth of it then."
Naruto continued to swear, reaching an astonishing level of volume and gutter speak despite not having lungs to scream at the top of. It continued for nearly a minute before petering it off. "Yeah… I get it," he growled, "I can't move on until Sasuke dies, and given he's trying to live forever as his stupid ass version of 'being Hokage'' two wispy limbs affected air quotes somehow. "Then I'm stuck here on the threshold, wherever the hell that even is."
The silence told him all the answers he needed.
"Great…" he huffed, sarchasm palpable.
"The threshold is… less a place and more the concept of one." Hagoromo explained, hoping to alleviate some of Naruto's annoyance with information, "It exists at the base of our souls, the point that connects us to the ring of Samsara. When a person draws close to death, their soul enters the threshold from which they can choose to either remain or move on. To the Pure Land or into Samsara itself remains up to those who can walk it. In the time before my mother, Samsara was more of the walked path, I changed that."
Naruto felt his 'eyes' narrow. "How?"
A crooked smile met his featureless face, "We all have our secrets, Naruto, in this life and the next."
The golden ghost would have flipped the Sage off had he the fingers to do it, "You're like an overly poetic Kakashi, ya know that?" But the humour had been well timed, it succeeded in quelling Naruto's anger and sending it simmering back into just aggravation. "So why are you here, other than to explain why I can't move on."
Hagoromo's face lost its humour, returning to a stoic frown. He didn't speak, letting the Shakujo float around him as he gathered his thoughts. "Because… you don't deserve this."
"...what?"
"You. Do. Not. Deserve. This. This oblivion, this nothingness at the end of time and sense." the old spirit's eyes narrowed almost dangerously, annoyance frothed up from the crags of his face like magma spoiling to be loosed from a volcano. "I have watched all of my descendants' reincarnations. All of them. Some lived better lives than you, some lived worse. But you lived as best you could and died with no regrets. Yet here you stand, chained to a nothingness of my own making with your freedom to move on or walk the path almost vindictively barred. This will not stand. So I am here to do what I can."
He brightened, "You mean you can-"
Hagoromo raised a hand, cutting Naruto short. "I cannot send you to the pure land. The power I gave to you and Sasuke to seal my mother may take years to fully return to me. But with what little power I have, I can use the mechanics of Samsara to at least set you adrift from this dull threshold."
Naruto gulped, the magnitude of what was being offered was a difficult thing to grasp, but still, it was better than nothing.
"I can give your soul a… the best way to say it would be push." Hagoromo explained, taking hold of his Shakujo, its onyx black rings echoing in the dark as they rattled. "Allowing you into Samsara with my blessing of Enlightenment, so when you are born again, you will be so with your sense of self fully intact."
The golden spectre 'smiled', but then reality set in. "What's the catch?" he asked, remembering the phrase that there was no such thing as a free lunch.
Hagoromo gave a melancholic chuckle, perhaps because he had underestimated how perspective Naruto could be. "The reincarnation of Asura and Indra was bound to their descendants, their blood as a guide. With no more blood descendants of Asura, you will be turned loose into the great trichiliocosm. Samsara passes between all worlds, and without a mooring line of blood… I don't know what world you will end up in."
He stayed silent as the Sage explained, it was certainly an ominous proposition. "Will I really still be me?" he asked. As someone who had never gone through the process of reincarnation himself, he didn't know the particulars and this would probably be his one and only time to ask. Naruto hardly wanted to sit in this between space for the next infinity playing go fish with his distant ancestor's ghost.
Hagoromo hummed in thought, placing the black staff across his knees to think. The golden ghost wondered if perhaps the seemingly implacable sage fiddled with the monk's stave in the same way he scratched his head or added a verbal tick when he was flustered or in thought.
"It will be you in that you have your memories and it will be your soul. But as for your looks or stature? I cannot say. Your chakra may not even manifest in the next life, if you find yourself in a world that does not permit it."
"What about Kurama?" Naruto asked, the absence of his furry partner already weighing on his mind. He felt a wave of dismay flow over him when Hagoromo closed his eyes solemnly. "Damn it…"
"Indeed. Kurama has burned away with your body, and likely begun his regeneration period. It will be some time before he is cognizant again." Hagoromo said, his voice gaining a soothing quality of a grandfather comforting their family. "But the wheel of Samsara is not without its balms. What was done in this life will be attended to in the next, and should you pass there with your karma exonerated, then through my mark you will find your way to the Pure Realm… should that be what you wish. A fresh start is a fresh start. Do not hold prejudice against parents yet to birth you or a world yet to know you."
The golden pillar of swirling energy that was Naruto remained floating in situ, his mind and soul awhir with thoughts. It was odd for someone so defined by spontaneity to be so pensive, but then again Naruto had always been more than what people saw. And death had a poetic way of giviing you perspective on life lived and life yet to come.
Hagoromo waited patiently, the pinpoint pupils of his Rinnegan tracing the exotic and unique patterns in the Asura transmigrant's essence. Finally, Naruto seemed to come to a decision and floated forwards to stand before the seated Sage. "I'll do it."
Was it a trick of the light, or did Hagoromo spot one flux of auric pattern on Naruto's faceless head take on a vulpine smirk?
Raising his hands, the Otsutsuki held them apart and focused. Wisps of red and blue power began to arc from his fingertips until they caught one one another, beginning to cycle in an endlessly repeating mobius strip of red and blue before contracting in on itself until it was a single mote of light. The pinprick of shifting energy pulsed a few times before popping like a soap bubble, revealing a red sigil of concentric rings, the same mark on Hagoromo's own forehead.
Cupping it in one hand, the Sage extended it out to Naruto and the moment the gold ghost focused on it caused a reaction, it floated clear of Hagoromo's hand and drew itself towards his noncorporeal chest. Touching with a feeling that sent a wave of warmth through his being, Naruto grunted in shock, feeling warmth bloom like fire as he was engulfed in a flaming aura.
"Be seeing you, Super Sage Gramps," Naruto said, a smirk in his words as he glowed all the brighter.
The Sage of Six Paths favoured his descendant with a warm and genuine smile, "Go well into that good night, Naruto Uzumaki. Never forget who you are, but do not deny what you may become.
The shroud of red spiritual fire grew brighter and bolder until a pillar of vermilion light burst from the watery surface of the threshold, lighting the void with a soundless tide of power. When it faded there was no evidence of Naruto Uzumaki…
Nor the single spark of black fire that had clung to his form as he left.
(.0.0.0.)
Time is an intrinsically difficult thing to monitor in a void. We inherently mark it's passage in accordance to and in relation to points of reference. Clocks. The passage of the sun and moon and perhaps at the most primaeval level, the thump of your own heart in your chest. When mankind of any strain were still but knuckle dragging apes that had yet to look up to marvel at the wheeling in the heavens, it was only that 'ba-dump', 'ba-dump' that created any regularity.
So upon finding himself in another void after departing the threshold with absolutely nothing to measure time by, Naruto had been royally pissed off. Well, as pissed off as a mouthless, brainless not-thing in the dark could be. He was aware of change though, for the comparative awareness of the threshold was nothing compared to wherever he was now. So in summary, he was aware that there had been a change but could hardly say how long it had been since then.
The time in between was fuzzy as well. All he could remember was fire.
Yet as time passed, things remained vague but lacking true senses to express them. Until one day, with nothing but his thoughts as company, he heard it:
Ba-dump.
Ba-dump.
Ba-dump.
A heartbeat. His heartbeat. It was not much but it was something to cling onto to ward off boredom and set a beat to which he could engage in his new hobby. Passing the time. It was no gardening but it was not without its comforts.
Naruto could say that it was probably the most comfortable he had ever been in his life past or this nascent new one.
'Is this what it's like to be in your mother's womb?' he thought one day before giving a mental gasp, 'Oh crap, that's where I am!'
That truly eloquent observation ushered Naruto into his second life, or at least it's prelude. A simple life of enjoying the warmth of his surroundings as his body developed. Senses came with time, even if they were all muted by amniotic liquid he swam in at all times. He never felt hunger for that need was taken care of by his mother and he didn't hear much in the way of sound beyond muted conversations dulled by his organic home.
Which is all to say, it was paradise until he began to think, then it became about as boring as waiting for his Sensei.
One day though, things changed, he had felt it coming, permiating through the warmth of his home and perhaps even the fear of his mother traveling down to him while they were still technically one being.
Tightness surrounded him on all sides and he became acquainted with darkness that pushed against his eyes.
'Could somebody please turn out the light!'
He regretted the thoughts instantly.
There is a reason that we do not remember the day we are born, and it is more than lacking the brain capacity to remember it. It is a violent and painful thing. Everything changes. You are ripped from the only place you have ever known, ripped away from warmth and safety. You take hours to pass through a vicelike darkness to enter a world where everything is different.
On the one hand, Naruto took it pretty well, after all he had life experience and vividly remembered being burned alive. On the other hand, labour still took hours and his body, while healthy as could be, was still that of a baby and was rocked by the aftershocks of the hardest thing the new pink babe had ever done.
He cried upon coming into the world, coughing up the nasty red-brown goop to take his first breaths and blinking his new eyes at the sudden influx of light. Before he knew it he was roughly swaddled in linens and he was given a chance to take in the new place he found himself in. A new world entirely.
He looked out from the hole in the linens, his view framed by an oval of fabric. He blinked. He hoped this world had colour, because right now all he saw was grey.
The room was a drab grey, all stone and masonry, devoid of colour. Not lacking in the finery of wealth but all intentionally imperial and brutally grey. Despite that it was not without its creature comforts, a large cracking fire flickered at the end of the room, sending a wash of orange light that banished the feeling of cold the permeated the masonry. Several people moved within the room, jostling to get a look at the newborn, none seeming to notice that the fire itself had grown, almost as if it marked the birth of this new child.
"Let me see him…" a woman's horse voice cut across the burble of people, all stilling and turning to look at the speaker. "Let me see my son."
Naruto's ears perked up, trying to turn his head but was galled to find that he was, alas, a baby, and could only get a look at the middle aged woman in grey who held him. Not his mother, he knew instantly even if he didn't yet know what features to look for.
"But your grace… the King-" the veiled woman in grey murmured, "he needs to know if his child is truly a son-"
"Let me see my child," the weary voice asked again and the veiled woman complied, walking Naruto around the edge of a large four poster bed. He adjusted him in her arms and Naruto was able to peek out at his new mother with curious violet eyes.
What he saw surprised him.
A weary woman -more a girl, really- tired and pale, with bright eyes and red hair. She was sat in the centre of the bed propped up by a small mountain of pillows, her hair stuck to her forehead through sheets of sweat that made the white nightdress she wore stick to her like a second skin. The bottom of it, like the bed sheets he had been birthed onto, were splattered with blood. The woman -his mother- didn't care, she had eyes only for him.
Taking ahold of the bundle of cloth, she brought him close and looked down into his new violet eyes and began to coo. "It's a boy…." she whispered, checking him, "It's a boy!" she said, stronger this time, her face coming alive with a strength that made her look like she could take on the world. She swayed with exhaustion and collapsed back onto her pillows but kept him gently to her breast, swaying him slightly as she heaved breaths to alleviate the weariness of her body.
She looked down at him again and tilted her head to the side, staring into his violet eyes, like twin stars cut from a fiery amethyst. "Hello, Aegon." she greeted and Naruto gave a cherubim smile in response. She held his gaze for some time before looking away to the corner of the room. "Come and see your son, my King."
'King?' Naruto thought.
Someone stepped out of the shadows in the corner of the room, revealing himself in the light of the hearth. His steps were initially stilted and weary, as if they were too afraid to take in what they were seeing. That changed when their eyes on Naruto, increasing his stride to stand at his mother's bedside. He was a relatively tall man with a broad and round face with long silver hair that trailed freely down his back. He wore a quilted black jerkin made of fine fabrics inset with red thread and matching breeches and boots.
He stared at Naruto, blinking owlishly like he could not believe the sight before him until finally he returned to reality. "Let me see him," he said softly, gaining strength in his voice as he extended his hands to grab for the bundle of cloth. "Let me see him!"
His mother reluctantly held onto him for a few seconds before realisation seemed to dawn her and she delicately handed Naruto to his new father. While it was not a snatch, the silver haired man clutched the babe to his chest as reverently as his mother had done, hunching his shoulders to create a cocoon of protection. "My son…"
Naruto looked up into the face of his father and truly took in the details of his face. He was haggard looking and Naruto initially thought he was in his late fifties but some sixth sense told him that it was not right. There was still the bandiness of youth to the King but the lines on his face and thinning of his hairline spoke of being prematurely aged by stress. Not that Naruto could blame him, the moment he had learned that the Third Hokage had barely been 70 when he died had told Naruto that ruling was something that sapped the vitality of even the most verile.
But whatever evils of ruling or this new world Naruto suddenly found himself a prince in, and what a novel thought that was, he could still see a glitter of something in those violet eyes that he shared with the king.
Goodness.
A rare commodity indeed.
"Aegon. His name shall be Aegon the Second." the King said, his temples creased with exhaustion that seemed more extreme than his apparent wife. "By the old gods and the new, I have a son!" he shouted, exalting pantheons unknown as he lifted Naruto, or rather, Aegon, up into the air. The dozen strong cortierge of menials, midwives and medical men around gawped at the sight as if he was some kind of celestial being. An impossibility that made even the tired and weary king dance.
"Viserys, please, be gentle with him." Naruto's mother chided with worry, and Naruto gave a worldness burble of annoyance. He hardly wanted to be rendered shook seconds after he was born. What an ignominious end that would be. Exonerated Karma his ass.
The king dropped him.
It had been an accident. A shear and pure misstep caused when Viserys had turned too sharply and overestimated his grip on his son as he made to return him to his mother's arms. But he was just a step too distant from the bed, and the floor was coming up so awfully quickly. And my goodness if it didn't look very hard.
Naruto cried out, a yip of concerned noise flying from his new throat.
'Are you kidding me?!'
By some miracle his mother caught him before he could dash his head against the stones. Even weakened by childbirth as she was, the young woman launched herself across the distance between and caught Naruto, pulling him close to her and shooting Viserys a heated look.
"Do be careful, your Grace. We are both quite tired."
The King took a step forwards before collapsing onto the bed himself, he pressed his face into the linens to give a long suffering sigh. He turned his head up so it faced his wife and child in a half profile smile. "I'll… keep that in mind, dear Alicent." he chuckled before pulling himself up to sit on the bed, an arm going around Alicent and both of them continuing to look down at him.
They were not the last. One by one, all the other people in the room approached to oogle and croon for the babe, offering their congratulations to the new parents and treating Naruto like he was woven from purist miracle.
Everyone was acting like he was the second coming of the Sage himself.
And speaking of the ethereal Sage, Naruto was happy that his mark had done as advertised. His thoughts were his own, which was good, he would've hated to lose his memories.
It was as good a time as any to take an internal inventory of his esoteric abilities.
Closing his violet eyes to feign sleep, he let his mind fall inwards, searching for that familiar warth in his bones. He frowned when he found none.
No chakra that he could sense, but he'd just been reborn, so that could change. For now he was happy that he wouldn't have to go through birth again and had apparently netted himself a reasonably healthy body. There was something else though, a flickering something in his blood…
'Kurama?' he asked inwardly in the vain hope of an answer, even with Hagoromo's words lingering in his ears, echoing all the louder when the great fox did not respond, absent.
His spirits fell, but he rallied. He was Naruto freakin' Uzumaki, he wasn't about to let something like DYING get him down, ya know? Not for long.
Opening his eyes, he idly spied another girl in the corner, nearly of an age with his mother and looking oddly disinterested in the whole affair. She had the same silver hair and violet eyes as his father and, at least he guessed, him. She wore a black and red floor length gown with bell shaped sleeves. She rested her back against the wall with her hands gathered at her front.
Viserys saw the direction of his son's eyes and followed it to the distant young woman, his smile widening. The silver haired man gestured to her. "Come now, Rhaenyra, say hello to your brother," he said emphatically as he continued to flag the woman, his new sister, over to his side.
She dithered by the door but her father's bright waving was a difficult thing to ignore and refute, soon joining the party by the bed and looking down into the face of her newborn brother.
And she glared at him.
...that this was going to be a problem, wasn't it?
No, don't focus on that. It was as Hagoromo had said, do not be closed off to a life yet lived.
Just be yourself. Sounded simple enough on paper. Right, sure. How hard could it be?
After all, he was a prince! Princes usually had it easy!
Wasn't like he'd become King or anything.
How little he knew.
A/N: Aaaand scene.
Part two next week, time and health permitting.
Weeeell? What did you think? Should this remain a story? Would you like weekly updates for that matter? Yay or nay? Really need to hear from you, here.
As stated, this has a high chance of being upgraded to M later down the line, but I need to know if folks want to see that. Once more, we're sticking with the "Embers" rule for this story, and others. Meaning folks don't like this, it won't be continued. If the story itself ain't popular/well-received...well, I won't be able to continue it. I'm working two jobs, holidays are here too, meaning I barely have time to write; as such, I cannot afford to write something folks don't enjoy.
So by all means, speak up! Your voice matters! Make yourself heard! As ever, reviews are the fuel that sustain me. Without them I cannot write a single word. Simple as that. Working nearly all hours of the day keep me absurdly busy, and I can't bring myself to write something folks don't like.
So? Should this little tale continue? Or fall into oblivion?
By all means, speak up! Make yourselves heard!
So in the Immortal Words of Atlas…
...Review...Would You Kindly?
And enjoy the Previews!
As ever:
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
PLOT DETAILS AHOY!
YE BE WARNED!
Read at your own risk!
First one has a massive reference that may or not happen...that's up to you, dear reader.
(Previews)
The egg was gold, and the dragon within, should it hatch, would be his. was his.
He debated names for it. Sunfyre sounded grand. But so did other names.
Ghidorah, for instance. A name fit for a King.
Alicent loved her son.
She hadn't though she would...but he was good.
Strong and kind and pure in a way she hadn't expected him to be.
Should he not be king?
"I always wanted siblings! Now I have a brother and sisters.
Yet you are not the heir.
...so?"
Grandfather made an aggravated noise.
Naruto -Aegon!- ignored him.
"Why should I marry my sister?"
Up you go, little brother!"
Aemond squinted at him...and accepted his hand. "You really are a strange one."
"Maybe. Now lets go find you a dragon!"
"Are you mad?!"
"A little. C'mon!"
EDIT: Hope this made your day! May you have a great one filled with lots of luck!
R ~!