The final battlefield was silent before the storm.
Naruto fought like a force of nature—chakra blazing, resolve unyielding—but Mokuren's leader was something else entirely. A shinobi who had severed every bond, every emotion, until only power remained.
"You hesitate," the enemy said calmly. "Because you love."
Naruto was struck down protecting an evacuation line.
Again.
Sakura reached him just as the world blurred.
He was alive—but barely.
She knelt in the blood-soaked earth, hands glowing, screaming his name as if volume alone could keep him here.
"Don't you dare," she sobbed. "Not now. Not when we still have so much left."
Naruto's eyes fluttered open.
"Sakura," he breathed. "If I don't—"
She shook her head violently. "No. You promised. You promised you'd stay."
His hand found hers.
"I stayed longer than I ever dreamed," he said softly. "Because of you."
Her scream tore the sky open.