You can't hide wild pain with loud laughter.
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva
If you numb the pain briefly, it becomes even more unbearable when you feel it again.
Joan Rowling
Our star shines brightly in our eyes, nearly blinding us, even though it's long past July. Kakashi and I sparred in training combat. Our strength and speed were equal, but his richer combat experience pinned me against the wall, letting me dodge only at the last moment. I could claim I'm that awesome. But really—it's the classic mistake of a lucky survivor elevated to Absolute. When you make fatal errors and survive by chance, thinking you're a pro. That battlefield doesn't forgive. That mindset will kill a shinobi sooner or later.
"You're not reacting in time," Kakashi gave his verdict, and I flew sideways from his strike. "Strength, speed, endurance—you have it all. But first, your reaction's lacking, and second, you don't always attack seriously. You're afraid to hit. And you need to hone your skills."
"I'll hit enemies, but I don't want to hit you," I stood, dusting off.
"If you think like that, they'll hit you," he replied calmly. "Alright, Ariza, training's over. Learn this scroll—lots of useful stuff on taijutsu and reaction. Another session the day after tomorrow."
"Got it!" I nodded, and he vanished in a puff of smoke. "Well then, now sword training!" I formed the seal and created two enhanced clones.
"And who're you training with?" Naruto asked from nearby.
"Myself," I replied casually, hands behind head. "Guys, don't hold back on power. Try to strike unexpectedly and fast. You're clones anyway."
"They're gonna go full power now?" Naruto asked, and looking into his blue eyes, I nodded with a smile.
"One..." I drawled, "twooo..." I was about to say "Three," but one clone at full speed decapitated the unsuspecting second.
"And what do we do?!" I approached the clone standing smugly as if nothing happened.
"What? You said 'strike unexpectedly,'" she grinned, like nothing wrong.
"Have you lost your mind?" I looked at the headless clone, then dispersed both to avoid arguing morals with my double.
"Got a defective one by chance. Happens."
"All my clones obey me," Naruto shrugged.
"It's not about obedience. My clones often have totally different traits, and the same ones. Two types: 'Me' type with same skills and qualities, and 'Some Other Me' type—sarcastic, bloodthirsty, selfish, cruel, disobedient, and loves to tease. It has superior kendo and taijutsu skills, plus better reaction and speed than normal clones. Sometimes it's really scary. Am I even me? What if they turn on me," I wrinkled my nose, imagining making clones for battle and them attacking me. "Tell me, Naruto, do I have those qualities I listed?" I asked, thinking: "Maybe the body's previous owner acted like that?"
"Nope," he shook his head. "Listen, Ari," he said cautiously, "teach me sword fighting, please."
"Eh? W-what?" I echoed, not believing my ears.
"You both have swords, I don't," he stood before me, hands clasped, pleading eyes. "I want one too! Can't ask Sasuke—he won't agree. So teach me swordsmanship, please."
"Listen, Naruto, is this really you?" I couldn't picture him with a sword.
"Mine!"
"Fine-fine!" I agreed, hoping he'd change his mind. "But first buy wooden swords. Better after rasengan though."
"Thanks, Ari-chan!" he hugged me.
"Easy, Naruto," I hugged back, noticing his rasengan-burned hands.
"Naruto, let me heal," I sat him down and calmly healed his hands. But my thoughts were far from calm. Something like this raced in my head:
"Holy crap! Damn it, how I'm changing history just by being here! With Naruto's persistence, he'll definitely learn the sword. And then... the whole story goes down the drain. Not bad, but not as it should be!" I panicked mentally.
"Thanks, Ari!" Naruto fake-smiled again and stood. "Now I'm ready for new training!"
I knew something had snapped in him after Minato's death. He'd changed. Like a part replaced. His "spark," his "zest" broken and suppressed. I had to figure it out. But first, answers on canon—in Mzarth.
"Alrighty, Naruto, try using clones in training. It'll help. I'm off," I waved before leaving and headed to the cave from days ago. Talk to him tonight.
"Screw it!" Not finding the cave, I decided to bail right on that clearing. First, I donned the mask and summoned a small dragonling, telling it I wanted to go to Aromun on the Great Mzarth Islands. It asked me to wait and vanished. "Hope I don't fall again," I said, and teleporting, plummeted headfirst. But before I could curse, a dragon caught me. Looking around, I was on Daichi's back.
"Good day, Daichi-sama," I shouted to greet, barely grabbing something after sliding back on his spine. He flew damn fast. Only the whistling in my ears annoyed, and loose hair whipping my face, blocking view and getting in my mouth.
"Hi, runt. What'd you forget here?" he replied gruffly, but I ignored it.
"Need to meet the sage," I said, and ignoring me, he tossed me to the main island. He didn't wait for thanks and left before I could speak. No point getting offended or wasting energy.
First, I made two clones: one normal, one enhanced. Normal disperses on arrival to report; enhanced stays till I get there.
Done, I headed to the temple and was before Aromun in 15 minutes.
This temple resembled a Catholic church: Gothic style, rich carvings, stained glass, dark tones, vaulted ceilings. Time had worn it—cobwebs stretched from ceiling to the weeping woman with rose painted vividly on glass, fluttering in air currents; light carving chips and peeling frescoes visible. The vast empty space echoed footsteps booming. Sunbeams through colored windows scattered hues on dark stone floor, their paths visible in the air. Entering this rainbow "corridor" of light, I looked down and saw my body covered in colorful spots. My scar-covered hands seemed incredibly beautiful in the glow for the first time. This temple... I didn't want to leave. Quiet, beautiful, clean. Peaceful.
"You came here to find an answer to your question," the sage rasped softly and hoarsely, slightly opening then closing his eyes. As always, he lay on a large pillow in the temple's center, seemingly asleep until I arrived.
"Yes, that's right. I have a question that's been bothering me for a long time. One person told me that the world is a pendulum, and also..." I fell silent, thinking how to ask if everything is going according to canon. They don't know the future, unlike me. "I'd like to know if the butterfly effect works in our world. You know, if you go back to the distant past and change something, will the entire world in the present change drastically?"
"Interesting questions you're asking," he opened his eyes again and looked intently with his purple pupils. "There is no butterfly effect in our world."
"But..." I was stunned, "how is that—no?"
"That's exactly how—no, your friend was right, our world is a pendulum."
"So..." I began frantically piecing it together, "so... EVERYTHING IS BACKWARDS?!" It finally clicked. The whole puzzle fell into place, connecting events with invisible threads.
"Exactly right, our world strives toward the plan predestined for it. And if something goes wrong, the world immediately tries to fix it and restore balance. Unseen forces control people's fates, removing everything unnecessary and restoring what was lost."
"Then why do they need me?!" I blurted out in a surge of emotion. It didn't fit in my head at all that the world would manage fine without me! Why send me here if it can handle everything perfectly without me?
Realizing what I'd done, I immediately shut up, trying to quell the resentment and indignation in my soul. For the first time in a long while, I was truly offended. Offended at something or someone. Not even clear at whom yet! But damn, these feelings were eating me up. Like some lump inside my soul had clenched instantly and then released. I didn't understand what it was.
"Ariza, sometimes there are irreparable events whose consequences can't be fixed. And the world doesn't have time to adjust events in a way that saves it."
"I don't believe it," I denied.
"You can believe it or not, it's not for us to judge, not for us to control."
"It's just..." I lowered my head, realizing I was superfluous in this world, and as soon as I complete my mission, the universe might just eliminate me. "I... don't know... Aromun-sama, tell me, how long does it roughly take the universe to restore the world?"
"I don't know that, but I think from one day to decades."
"Good," I swallowed, realizing I'd still have a chance to live in this world after completing my mission. Just a day or half a century—I didn't know. How scary that was... To understand you're being raised for slaughter. Though no, not like a pig for slaughter, but like a chicken—to lay eggs first, then you can slaughter it.
I asked Aromun that if I don't appear in this world for a long time, they should take care of raising the baby dragon. Then I left the temple practically in a ruined mood. It hurt, it was unpleasant... painful? I didn't want to accept this fact, this reality. My brain refused to believe it. The light stayed behind.
I was so immersed in my thoughts, recalling all the moments related to the pendulum, that I didn't even notice how I got home.
Standing at the threshold, I didn't want to go inside, even though I missed my pet. I felt the entire residue like lead that had settled at the bottom and was poisoning my soul. Lead like poison that I'd taken myself. And I didn't want him to sense it. All of it. But he'd understand—he's not stupid. Still, I finally dared to knock so the clones would open.
***
I returned to the inn already at night. So I decided not to wake anyone and quietly climbed in through the window.
Closing the panels behind me, I tiptoed to my room and saw that the light in our room was already off, but in the next one it was on. Probably Naruto, Jiraiya, and Kakashi were getting ready for bed there.
In that same second, I remembered the scroll Minato had given me and asked to pass to Naruto. And I realized this was the best moment. Because if something goes wrong with me and I can't open it, Jiraiya would help.
I quietly, but with a creak, opened our door and entered the room, glancing at the sleeping Sasuke. My goal was to grab the backpack, which I did, then on tiptoes, carefully so as not to wake him, went back.
I went out and, closing the door, headed to the room where Naruto was, knocked, and waited for them to open.
Kakashi-sensei opened for me, who was apparently already preparing for bed.
"Hi, Ari-chan, what do you need?"
"Kakashi-sensei, can you call Naruto?" I asked.
"I don't know where Naruto is, but I'm sure he's training," he scratched the back of his head and smiled with one eye.
"Hm, that's how it is... thanks!" Saying that, I disappeared around the corridor corner, heading for the exit.
"That's what I needed to know. Well, predictable. How did I not hear him? He should be making noise with rasengan," flashed through my head as I jumped from one tree branch to another.
I was there in ten minutes. And descending from the tree, I saw Naruto sitting on his knees, one hand against the tree and the other on the ground, breathing heavily. There were many trees ruined by rasengan around, and a terrible smell of burning hit my nose right away. He'd really trashed the place.
"Naruto, you okay?" I approached closer and noticed his hands were burned again. "Let's go? You still need to rest."
"No..." the boy shook his head, and I sat in front of him.
"Naruto, let's go home, you'll sleep, and tomorrow with new strength into battle," I put my hand on my friend's shoulder.
"Home?" he repeated, and the next words knocked me off my feet: "I have no home..."
Something clenched sharply in my chest. Into an empty vacuum lump. How familiar those words were. Like fire that scorched my soul, leaving only an empty aftertaste of disgust.
"What are you saying?" I tightened my grip on his shoulder. "How can you even say that!?" I asked and lifted his head by the chin.
He closed his eyes and turned away, as if hiding, and I saw tears streaming down his small dirty face. I wanted to shake him, set him straight, find out what happened. But I already knew. The worst thing that can happen in any child's life had happened. He was left without his only parent. He became an orphan.
"Ari..." his voice trembled, and I hugged him tightly, so tightly he wanted to pull away, resist, but couldn't. He had no strength. And neither did I, but it hurt so much.
"Naruto... friend, don't keep it in. I'm here," I said quietly, feeling him start to cry. His chest shook. I loosened my grip. And he began breathing quickly and shallowly.
"You hear me? I'm with you."
"I've asked him so many times to teach me this technique," he whispered in a trembling voice. "But he always said it was too early. That he'd teach me later. He lied. Since childhood. It wasn't about me. It was like he didn't love me."
"Naruto... that's not true. He loved you. He loved you! He always loved you!" I exclaimed, and he cried even harder. In sobs. I saw his teeth and eyelids clench hard, his jaw tense. Tears rolling down his cheeks. One after another. One after another.
This was a savage loss. Incredible despair. He curled into a ball, clutching his chest, and sobbed wrenchingly. From lack of oxygen, spasms gripped his chest. His fingers clenched tightly on his shirt on the left, over his heart. Suddenly my soul hurt so much. It hurt so much to watch. "Stop keeping it all in," I said to him, or rather to myself.
I cried too. We sat on the ground hugging and just cried. Cried nonstop. With all our strength. To release all that damn pain! I had no father or mother. In that world or this one. I don't know the phrase: "I love you, daughter." I've never heard it. I don't know what it's like to wake up in the morning, go to the kitchen, and see mom at the stove. Or the same dad with a newspaper or book, who would glare sternly or smile approvingly... I didn't have that! I'm an orphan. Naruto knew that. And now he was too! And it hurt us... Hurt... Hurt. Hurt!
Tears streamed down my cheeks, I buried myself in my friend's shoulder, squeezed his forearm. Just like he cried into my hair. And we, leaning against the tree, sat like that sobbing. Then the tears ended. Gone. But the pain and grief remained. From lost childhood. From the pain of losing a loved one.
The pain remained, tearing our chests. We were like two scared abandoned wolf cubs who found each other. We felt each other's pain. Literally. Truly! Mine. His.
We sat like that for an hour, a second, then fell asleep. Fell asleep hugging, together. As if forever... But we knew one thing—we'd wake up, and it would hurt again. But when we fully recover from this dream of incomprehension, it would be unbearable.
Right now we still didn't fully understand that we'd lost almost the most precious thing in a person's memory.
***
Read the story months ahead of the public release — early chapters are available on my Patreon: Granulan