“I’ll destroy the Ōtsutsuki. Every last one. Using their own powers to root them out.”

“All of them?” Naruto asked.

“Do you know what my first thought was,” Kawaki said, “when I found out that Boruto was alive?” He looked blankly into the air, “That I’d failed to take him down. I even felt some sort of guilt over having messed up. It actually surprised me,” He shook his head. “But this time, I swear,” He said. “I swear —“

A resounding slapping sound stopped Kawaki’s following words, “Hinata!” Naruto held his trembling wife’s shoulders, barely holding himself back from lashing out at Kawaki.

“You’re insane,” Hinata scolded with tears in her eyes, “No decent human being would ever think that way.”

“It sure might seem like that to you,” Kawaki agreed, “But then again, you’re probably right.” He turned to the two with a mad look in his eyes, “Only a crazy person could kill their brother.” The light in Naruto and Hinata’s eyes seemed to die and their faces took blank expressions as Kawaki continued, “Don’t misunderstand. I’m totally calm and thinking straight.”

“Please,” Hinata was bawling her eyes out, “Stop it.”

“Even if you hate me to death for it,” Kawaki continued, “I have to do it.”

“I won’t let you,” Naruto said, the numbness in his voice unmistakable, “You’ll end up killing me before you can get to Boruto. Can you still do it?”

“I ain’t asking for permission,” Kawaki said, his left eye turned dark as eight pitch-black spokes formed, surrounding his pupil. Before either Naruto or Hinata were able to react, a gust of wind was followed by a black shadow that appeared around their figures. Attempting unsuccessfully to grab onto Kawaki, Naruto was enveloped alongside his wife and sent away.

“Once it’s all done, you’re welcome to kill me,” Kawaki spoke with apathy as the room was left empty, a single frame having fallen to the ground. He looked down at the picture frame that had fallen, containing the happy figures of Naruto, Hinata, Boruto, and Himawari, “So just you wait until then, Lord Seventh.”

…

Naruto’s eyes snapped open, “Stop, Kawaki!” He shouted instinctively as his hand extended forward to hold Kawaki.

As his hand grabbed the empty air, Naruto finally had the chance to process his surroundings. Or to be more precise, the non-existence of his surroundings. All he could see in all directions was a black void of nothingness. Making him feel as if he had been robbed of his vision.

“Hinata!” His wife was the first person who came to mind as Naruto took in that black void of emptiness. He tried to look around, turning his head — or at least hoping that he was turning it, the black void was actively making all of his senses distorted. That was when he realized that he wasn’t actually saying anything, “Hinata …” He shouted again, but not a single sound escaped his lips.

Just as he was trying to figure out what was going on, a tuft of short black hair came into his view, making him widen his eyes, “Hinata!” Calling out her name like a broken record, he reached out to his wife’s frozen form, an expression of sadness and grief immortalized on her tear-stained face.

With a tremble in his gaze, he clenched his fist as his senses got used to the unique sensation of existing within nothingness.

“No point in panicking,” Although Naruto couldn’t understand the exact situation, he calmed himself down quickly, thinking objectively and summing up the abilities he had witnessed Isshiki use. It took him no more than a few seconds to recall the Daikokuten — A superior technique to the Kamui where the user had control over a separate dimension where the concepts of space and time didn’t exist.

Looking around, all he could see was an infinite void of nothingness, ‘Do I even see? If space doesn’t exist in this dimension …’ Countless questions arose in Naruto’s mind before he turned and saw his wife beside him, ‘Hinata…’ A defeated sigh made all the rising questions disappear, ‘I’m sorry,’ Looking at that flawless face showing a teary expression full of grief and loss, Naruto felt his heart clenching.

‘I have to free her and think of some way to get out,’ He decided his priorities. The first thing he did was to rouse his chakra to try and cast a jutsu. ‘No luck …’ Naruto realized, unable to feel the slightest presence of any of his chakra as if it had been completely sucked out of him. ‘I’m stuck without any chakra …’

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He wasn’t one to give up so quickly. His next thought was to wait for his chakra to be generated as his stamina got consumed naturally. ‘It’s not doing anything …’ He realized after having felt like minutes had passed. Under normal circumstances, this amount of time was enough for him to refill his chakra reserves completely but he kept coming up empty.

‘Manually then,’ Naruto decided before burning his spiritual and physical energy to generate chakra, ‘It shouldn’t take too long …’ Naruto’s hopes were dashed as he realized that even though he was burning his energies to generate chakra, neither his energies were decreasing, nor his chakra was increasing.

’A timeless dimension,’ Naruto realized something, ’Anything that takes time won’t work. Creating chakra needs time. I need another method. What about nature?’ Although he knew it wouldn’t work, he wanted to exhaust all of his options before giving up.

Extending his senses outwardly, he attempted to sense his surroundings, ‘As expected …’ He wasn’t surprised when he couldn’t feel anything other than his wife’s presence which felt to him like a warm sun in this void of nothingness.

‘How am I even conscious in this dimension? Let alone being conscious, I can feel that I have the free reign to move around as long as I can create some force. What am I even pushing against that’s allowing me to move,’ Naruto couldn’t help but think, ‘Considering Hinata is still completely frozen, how am I able to think and move around? This is an absolute void of nothingness where the two of us are floating …’

‘What do you think Kurama?’ Naruto felt that Kurama had been silent for a while, ‘Oh … Yeah.’ He shook his head, dispelling the negative thoughts from his mind. Kurama was gone and unless he had a way to go back in time, his partner was going to stay gone.

‘What now?’ Naruto didn’t have any more ideas at the moment. His gaze inadvertently met Hinata’s face and he felt his heart constricting again. The expression of desolation and pain on her teary face made him feel like a failure of a man, ‘I have to get out of here. If not for myself, then for her.’

…

Time itself became a paradox for Naruto. In one instant, he would feel as if a second was being stretched out to eternity, while in the next instant, it was as if an eternity had passed by in a mere second.

After a truly undefined amount of time passed by, Naruto heard the first sound in countless eternities as his head snapped up to look at a crack that had appeared in the aether of the void he and Hinata were in.

“It’s time to finish things,” A voice, deep and overbearing came out of the crack. The casual vibration caused by the voice broke through the non-existence of the void and reached Naruto’s ears, putting infinitely heavy pressure on his entire being, “No more loose ends.”

“You must be their god,” Naruto stood up, dusting himself off as he looked at the entity emerging from the void, “I take it Kawaki failed?” He asked flatly, his tone not allowing any sliver of his emotions to escape. The mere presence of the entity’s existence destabilized the dimension, yet Naruto was shrugging it off as if it were mere air.

“Isshiki,” The overbearing voice spoke, “Valiant effort, but futile in front of an absolute. Tell me, mortal. You don’t seem surprised by my appearance.”

“Either those two would win, in which case I would turn everything back. Or they would lose, in which case I would also turn everything back. Really, I was just curious about the outcome at this point.” Naruto said, “Now I know that he didn’t truly know what he was up against. Neither of them did.” A disappointed shake of his head followed those words.

“Hm …” The entity seemed thoughtful, “Peculiar. Did you maintain your consciousness even when affected by the Daikokuten?” Without even waiting for Naruto’s answer, the entity made his move.

“It’s time to go back and fix everything.” Naruto didn’t seem to notice anything approaching him and merely waited. The conclusion of his words instantly stopped time itself. Be it the divine ability of the Ōtsutsuki God or the entity itself, it was all frozen.

Naruto spread his arms and a presence completely eclipsing the Ōtsutsuki God escaped his body, as if a suppressed beast roaring to the heavens in defiance. Merely releasing that pressure made cracks appear in the fabric of the dimension — much larger and deeper than even the one that was made by the god to enter the dimension.

Those cracks led to countless other dimensions, including the main material dimension where the five elemental nations resided. One of the cracks even led to the pure land that housed all of the deceased souls of their land.

That pressure didn’t originate from any ability that could be quantified or understood. It had nothing to do with Chakra, nor was it a divine ability. Naruto’s current pressure stemmed from a source far beyond these abilities.

He looked at the Ōtsutsuki god who was frozen in his place alongside the ability that one of his eyes had just cast and let out a chuckle that was then followed by a green mist escaping his body, “I’m finally going to see you again, my Hinata-chan …” He turned back to look at his wife, the same helpless expression of agony and despair immortalized on her face that had been there for the past eternities.

The green mist continued to escape Naruto’s body, even to the point of dyeing the entire dimension of nothingness in its color. It continued expanding even after saturating the dimension, passing through the cracks that had been created by the release of Naruto’s aura. With each passing moment, the speed of the mist’s expansion increased exponentially.

Soon enough, it had completely expanded to cover all of existence in its entirety.

’Time,’ Naruto, bathed in green, felt the essence of the power escaping him, ‘thank you.’ He gave a grateful nod out into the nothingness and smiled a freeing smile moments before everything returned to nothingness once again.