Chapter 12
Kagerō stood over the downed Copy Ninja, his victory absolute. His one visible eye, filled with a lazy, melancholic curiosity, settled on the last remaining variable. The boy who had done nothing but stand and watch.
"And then there was one," Kagerō said, his voice holding the first hint of genuine interest. "Tell me, boy with the strange teeth. Are you going to be tedious as well?"
Naruto didn't answer immediately. He slowly took his hands out of his pockets. He walked past the triumphant Kagerō, his footsteps soft and deliberate on the damp bridge. He stopped beside Kakashi, who was struggling to push himself up, and knelt down.
"Stay down, sensei," Naruto said, his voice quiet. "You did good. Get your breath back."
He then glanced over at Sasuke, who was trying to rise, his body trembling with exhaustion and shame. Naruto's gaze lingered for a moment, an unreadable assessment, before he stood up and turned to face Kagerō. He started walking towards him, his pace unhurried, almost casual.
"You're an interesting one," Naruto began, his voice carrying easily across the quiet bridge. He drew the simple wakizashi from his sleeve, holding it loosely at his side. "All that talk about death and beauty… it's just a cover, isn't it? A way to keep people from lookin' too close."
Kagerō's smile remained, but his eye narrowed slightly.
Naruto stopped about ten feet away from him. He raised the blade, its tip pointed at the sky.
"Collapse…"
The world seemed to hold its breath. Kagerō felt a subtle shift in the air, a strange resonance that had nothing to do with chakra. The plain sword in Naruto's hand shimmered, twisting and reforming into the alien, whimsical shape of Sakanade.
"…Sakanade," Naruto finished.
He lowered the blade and began to spin it lazily by the ring on its pommel, the motion smooth and hypnotic. A faint, sweet-smelling pink mist began to pulse gently from its five holes.
"I've been watchin'," Naruto continued, his voice taking on a lazy, analytical drawl. "Your little trick… it's neat. You don't have a defense. You are the defense. Anything made of chakra touches you, and poof, it's gone. That's why you don't block. You don't need to. You just have to make contact."
He took another step forward, Sakanade continuing its endless, mesmerizing spin.
"But that's the problem, isn't it? You have to make contact. Which means you're physically weak. You dance around, lookin' all fancy and predictive, 'cause one good, solid hit without any chakra behind it, and you're done. You're just a man in a coat."
Kagerō's smile finally faltered, replaced by a look of cold, sharp focus.
Naruto then glanced over at the collapsed form of Yami, who was still gasping on the ground. "And your buddy over there… he's the opposite. All power, no substance. A glass cannon. He burns himself out, a candle burnin' from both ends, and for what?"
Naruto's gaze returned to Kagerō, and his eyes were like chips of ice. The next words were not a combat analysis; they were a dissection of the soul, delivered with a casual, cutting cruelty.
"For you. He's desperate for your approval. For a single word of praise. He'd kill the world for you, die for you… and you don't give a damn about him. You see him as a tool. A predictable, boring, and ultimately disposable one."
For the first time since he had appeared on the bridge, Kagerō was completely silent. The lazy, melancholic persona had vanished, replaced by a stillness that was far more dangerous. He had been read. Not just his abilities, but his motivations, his relationships, his very essence. This boy had looked at him for five minutes and had seen everything.
"…And what are you?" Kagerō asked, his voice a low, intense whisper.
Naruto just grinned, that signature, unnerving smile that showed all his upper teeth. The sweet-smelling mist was thicker now, swirling around Kagerō's feet. Kagerō felt it then, a subtle, nauseating lurch in his stomach. The bridge beneath him seemed to tilt, just for a moment.
"Me?" Naruto replied, taking one last step forward. "I'm just the guy who's about to make your head spin."
Kagerō felt the world drop from under him. The grey sky and the bridge switched places with a sickening, silent flip. He was now standing on an endless ceiling of clouds, looking up at the hard, cold ground of the bridge. Naruto stood opposite him, perfectly balanced in this new, inverted reality.
"Welcome to my world," Naruto said, his voice echoing from all around. Sakanade's spin was the only thing that felt real. "Where everything's a little upside-down."
___
Chapter 13: A Dance in a Falling Sky
Kagerō stood on a ceiling of clouds, the world hanging precariously above him. The initial, gut-wrenching vertigo gave way to a cold, analytical focus. His mind, his greatest weapon, was already working, trying to process the impossible rules of this new reality. He was a master of predicting his opponents, of seeing the lines of causality that governed a fight. But here, the lines were all tangled, the board flipped upside down.
"Welcome to my world," Naruto's voice echoed, seeming to come from every direction at once. "Where everything's a little upside-down."
Before Kagerō could formulate a response, Naruto turned his back on him. It was a move of such supreme, dismissive arrogance that it momentarily stunned Kagerō.
With a simple, silent pulse of energy, three shadow clones poofed into existence. They didn't have Naruto's usual mischievous grin; their faces were blank, professional masks.
"Get them out of here," the real Naruto ordered without looking.
The clones moved with quiet efficiency. One appeared by Kakashi, carefully lifting the dazed jounin and carrying him towards the far end of the bridge. Another went to Sasuke, hoisting the semi-conscious Uchiha over its shoulder. The third clone scooped up the still-recovering Yami, then gently guided the terrified Sakura and Tazuna to safety.
Kagerō saw his chance. The boy was distracted. He tried to lunge forward, to intercept the clones, to take a hostage. His brain screamed, Forward! His body stumbled backward. He saw a clone moving on his left and threw a desperate, wild punch, only to watch his arm swing uselessly to the right, hitting nothing but misty air. The disconnect was maddening.
"Having trouble?" Naruto asked, not even bothering to turn around. By the time Kagerō had regained his footing, the clones and their "baggage" were already at a safe distance, watching the confrontation from the entrance of the bridge. The stage was now clear. It was just the two of them, standing alone in an inverted world.
"Such a bothersome ability," Kagerō said, his voice regaining its steady, melodic tone, though his one visible eye was now sharp as a needle. He drew a simple kunai. "An illusion that inverts perception. Clever. But a puzzle is still just a puzzle. And all puzzles can be solved."
He flicked his wrist. He aimed the kunai backward and to his left, consciously trying to invert his own actions to match the world's new rules. The blade shot forward, flying straight and true… directly to Naruto's right, missing him by a good five feet.
Naruto didn't even flinch. He just tilted his head. "Good try. Your brain's learnin'. But your body's still a little slow on the uptake, don'tcha think?"
Before Kagerō could process the failure, Naruto vanished.
It wasn't a flicker. It wasn't a burst of speed. He was simply gone. Kagerō's senses screamed, his mind racing to calculate, to predict—but there was nothing to predict. In this inverted world, with no sound and no discernible movement, Naruto was a ghost.
A searing pain erupted on Kagerō's right arm. He looked down to see a clean, shallow slice bleeding through his sleeve. He hadn't seen the attack. He hadn't even felt the approach. The pain itself felt misplaced, as if it should have been on his left leg.
Another sting of pain, this time on his left calf. Another perfect, shallow cut.
Naruto reappeared ten feet in front of him, Sakanade twirling lazily. "This is the part where you start getting frustrated," Naruto said, his voice a calm, analytical commentary. "You'll get angry. You'll get reckless. You'll try to lash out, hopin' to hit somethin'. And that's when you'll leave a real opening."
He was dissecting him. Not just fighting him, but narrating his own psychological demise.
Kagerō took a deep breath, forcing down the rising tide of panic and frustration. The boy was right. A direct confrontation was impossible. Evasion was only delaying the inevitable. He couldn't win by playing this game. So, he had to break the rules. He had to force contact.
He charged, not with any real hope of landing a blow, but as a feint. Naruto met the charge with his usual, infuriating calm. He sidestepped a clumsy, inverted punch and brought Sakanade around in a smooth, horizontal arc, aimed at Kagerō's ribs.
This was the moment.
Kagerō didn't dodge.
Instead, he moved into the attack. With a surge of desperate resolve, he abandoned his evasion and turned his own body onto the blade. Pain, white-hot and absolute, exploded in his side as Sakanade's razor edge sliced deep into his flesh.
But it was a price he was willing to pay.
With Naruto's blade lodged in his side, binding them together for a single, critical second, Kagerō had his opening. He lunged forward, ignoring the agony, and clamped his free hand down on Naruto's sword arm.
Contact.
The world seemed to jolt. Kagerō felt his ability, "No Longer Human," surge from him, the absolute law of his power meeting the absolute law of Naruto's. He felt the familiar sensation of chakra unraveling, of a jutsu being snuffed out.
From Naruto's perspective, it was a strange sensation. The vibrant blue aura of chakra swirling around his arm, the part of his energy that belonged to this world, sputtered and died instantly. It was as if a switch had been flipped.
But the spectral, pinkish-magenta energy—his own Reiatsu, the power of his soul—did not.
It flared, burning even brighter, completely unaffected. Sakanade did not vanish. The Inverted World did not collapse.
Kagerō's one visible eye shot wide open in pure, unadulterated shock. It was impossible. He had touched him. He had made contact. Why wasn't it working? His ability, his ultimate, absolute defense, the very core of his power and identity… it had failed.
He had sacrificed his own body, played his final, desperate gambit, and the rules had not bent to his will.
Naruto looked down at the hand gripping his arm, then back up at Kagerō's terrified face. His expression was one of cold, clinical pity.
"Looks like your little trick," Naruto said, his voice quiet, "only works on things from around here."
He didn't throw a punch. He didn't need to. He simply tightened his grip on Sakanade and, with a powerful, Reiatsu-enhanced motion, drove the ringed pommel of his sword into Kagerō's head.
The sound was a dull, heavy thud.
Kagerō's eye rolled back into his head. His grip went slack. He collapsed to the bridge, unconscious before he even hit the ground, his own world and the Inverted World around him finally shattering into a silent, defeated darkness.
___
Naruto stood over the unconscious form of Kagerō, the pink mist of the Inverted World slowly dissipating into the grey morning air. The silence on the bridge was absolute.
But in Naruto's hand, Sakanade was screaming.
Not with a voice, but with a vibration. The hilt buzzed against his palm, a frantic, ecstatic energy that traveled up his arm and rattled his very bones. It wasn't fear. It was a twisted, manic excitement.
Naruto sighed, looking down at the blade. "Calm down, will ya? He's out cold."
The buzzing didn't stop. It reminded him of a conversation from a lifetime ago. A memory of a quiet room, a grieving girl, and a captain trying to explain the unexplainable nature of his partner.
(Flashback: Soul Society, Decades Ago)
The room was dim. Momo Hinamori sat with her head bowed, the weight of Aizen's betrayal crushing her. She was silent, broken.
Shinji sat nearby, his posture relaxed but his eyes soft. He knew he couldn't fix her pain, but he could offer her a piece of the truth.
"My Zanpakutō's called Sakanade," Shinji said, his voice gentle, breaking the heavy silence. "But man, it's got a really nasty personality. It lies all the time."
Hinamori looked up blankly, caught off guard. Why was he talking about his sword now?
Shinji ignored the confusion, his gaze drifting to the ceiling. "Up is down. Left is right. It tells me one thing and does another. To master it... I had to pick out a grain-of-sand-sized bit of truth from a mountain of lies just to make it submit. It's exhausting."
He looked back at her, his eyes sharp. "But that's why I knew."
"When I first saw Aizen... Sakanade got all restless. Excited. Fidgety. Sakanade's usually not interested in the outside world at all. It finds the truth boring. But Aizen? Aizen was the biggest liar of them all."
Shinji tapped the hilt of his sword. "Real recognizes real, Hinamori-chan. My sword knew he was a monster before I even saw his face."
(End Flashback)
Naruto blinked, the memory fading as the cold air of the Land of Waves brought him back. He looked down at Kagerō, the man who could nullify anything he touched.
"I get it," Naruto whispered to his sword. "You like him, don'tcha?"
Kagerō was an anomaly. His ability, No Longer Human, was the ultimate truth-teller. It stripped away chakra, illusions, and constructs, forcing the world to be nothing but its raw, physical self.
For a sword born of lies and inversion, a man who forced absolute "truth" upon the world was the ultimate curiosity. Just like Aizen had been the ultimate deceiver, Kagerō was the ultimate negator.
"First Aizen, now this guy," Naruto muttered, sheathing the buzzing wakizashi with a sharp click. "You really do have terrible taste in friends, Sakanade."
He looked at the unconscious mercenary one last time.
"But... I guess that makes two of us."