Epilogue IV: Moving Onwards

The fifth hokage, Senju Tsunade, sat at her desk in the Hokage tower. The endless stack of paperwork in front of her was temporarily forgotten, as she leaned back in her chair with a glass of sake in her hand. Her guard had been dismissed; as far as anyone could tell she was alone in the room.

She sighed. "Naruto, I swear to Kami. Just because I can't detect you doesn't mean I don't know you're there."

"What? Horse crap!" Naruto, laughing, let himself appear in the centre of the office. "How did you know then?"

Tsunade wrinkled her nose up. "I could smell you."

"What?"

"Heh. Nah, I'm kidding." Tsunade smiled at him. "But I knew you'd be here eventually, and you're only-" she glanced at a clock, "Fourteen minutes late. Not that you have an excuse for that, given how fast you move. But I've been saying variants of 'Naruto, I know you're there' periodically for the last thirty minutes."

"Oof. I let you catch me out with that?" Naruto grimaced. "Damn. I should know better than that."

"You should. That's part of why I called you here." Tsunade spun in her chair, turning to the window. Konoha was looking pretty good in the afternoon light. "You have any idea what they think about you?" Tsunade asked him, gesturing out through the glass. "The people, I mean."

"Uh." Naruto blinked, and thought about it. "Do they...not hate me?"

Tsunade briefly felt the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose, but suppressed it. It's not the kid's fault, not after the way he was raised...

"Yeah, Naruto, they don't hate you. Matter of fact, you're pretty much...the most popular man in the world right now."

"Wait, really?"

"You saved us all from eternal slavery." Tsunade deadpanned, then held her hand up when she saw him open his mouth, "And I know that Sasuke and Hinata did a lot of that work, but you're a lot more...marketable, I suppose. I mean look at them. They're both edgelords."

"Recovering edgelords." Naruto corrected.

"Point is, you're a big deal." Tsunade summarised. "Plus..." this was bound to be an awkward part, "people have called you the strongest person on the planet. That true?"

"Well I mean-" Naruto started bullshitting, then took a look at her expression, which very clearly implied a no-bullshit rule. He blew out a breath.

"Yeah. Pretty much. With the Six-Paths sage mode alone I'm comparable to Sasuke and Hinata; I have more raw strength but they have more crazy abilities. But if you factor in Kurama, then, yeah. Unless there's someone hiding in a cave somewhere we've never heard of, I'm the strongest ninja on the planet."

Tsunade tilted her head. "You don't seem overly happy about that."

"Well I dunno it's-" Naruto scuffed one foot on the ground, "it's weird, isn't it? I spent five years throwing myself at one impossible challenge after another. Zabuzza, Gaara, Orochimaru, Hinata, Pain, Madara. And now I'm out of people to aim for. I'm not the underdog anymore."

Tsunade smiled. "Don't get too cocky, kid. Plenty of ninja thought they were at the top of the world, only to be brought down by-"

There was a blur, and Naruto was gone. Tsunade blinked, looked left and right, then out the window just in time to see the horizon erupt into a fireball.

She couldn't place exactly how far away it was, just gape in awe as it mushroomed out, spreading up into the sky-

Then froze. It was enveloped in an orange glow, being compressed into a perfect sphere, as a giant golden fox-headed avatar grew into existence next to it. It paused, contemplated, and then swung its leg back and booted the sphere up into the air. She tried to track its flight path, but it far too rapidly flew up above the angle her window would allow her to view.

The Fox avatar vanished, and then a blink later, Naruto was back in her office.

"Sorry." He apologised, looking at her pointedly. "There was a big pile of rubble over near Sand I was meant to get rid of."

Tsunade gulped. "Was...that a shadow clone or-"

"Nope. Me." Naruto didn't even look smug, just resigned. "Get my point? You could punch me in the head and I wouldn't die. I don't want to worry people by admitting it, but I could probably blow up the planet if I really wanted to."

"R-right." Tsunade tried not to shiver. "Point taken, cutting off the humility speech. What kind of bullshit power cliffing-"

"I know right? Whoever wrote this system is a goddamn maniac..." Naruto coughed, then shook his head, breaking out a smile. "Sorry, I'm not here to complain and show off. What did you need?"

"Is...is the fireball gonna-"

"It's faster than escape velocity. Don't worry, it's gone."

"Got it." Tsunade made herself relax. He's still the tiny brat that showed up in a bar and started talking smack when he hadn't even made Chunin yet. Just a little more grown up, and a few orders of magnitude more dangerous...

"Look. Naruto." She said, standing up and walking over to him. "Officially, you are a Chunin. A Jinchurikki, which comes with a few more powers and restrictions, but still. A middle ninja. I called you here because we need to discuss how that changes."

Naruto's eyes widened. "You're not demoting me, are you?"

Tsunade's eyes narrowed. "Please tell me that was a joke-"

Naruto held his hands up "Yes, it was a joke! Mostly."

"Good. Look, promoting you ought to be a foregone conclusion, but it's not that simple." Tsunade leaned back on her desk. "You may be practically a god in human form, but there's more to hitting Jonin than just being strong enough. There's requirements for knowledge, for memorised protocols, demonstrated skill in leadership, a dozen other skills. And if there's one thing I know Jiraiya didn't teach you while you were on your training trip, it's protocol." She grimaced. "Then again...I'm not sure there's much point in teaching you to resist torture when there's nothing anyone can do to hurt you."

She put a hand on his shoulder. "While I know you're usually one to gasp and start giving motivational speeches at the mere mention of taking shortcuts, nobody would complain if I awarded you the rank outright for services rendered. Hell, if we make a ceremony out of it it might even boost morale."

"Whoa..." Naruto looked down, thinking about it. "So that's what this is. You want me to decide whether I'm gonna take the 'Jonin exams' or just skip them."

Tsunade almost smiled. "Well...there is a third option."

When he looked up at her in confusion, she turned away, moving back behind her desk. She picked up the Hokage hat, resting on the back of her office chair, and tossed it forwards onto the desk, peak facing Naruto. She leaned her weight on the desk just behind it, and waited.

And waited.

Naruto looked from it, to her, back to it, back to her again.

He blinked. "No fucking way."

"Nobody would deny you deserve it." Tsunade shrugged. "You've got the attitude, you're basically the will of fire's mortal form, you're so damn powerful it's practically an embarrassment that you don't have the position already. Oh, and you're basically chosen by Ninja Jesus in the same way my Grandfather was."

"Grand-uncle." Naruto coughed.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, just, we need to talk at some point about what I learned from some dead Senju." Naruto still looked in shock. "But...Me? Hokage?"

"It is your big dream, right?" Tsunade smirked at him.

"But I don't know anything about running a village!" Naruto protested. "I mean Kage have to make decisions on spending, on rules, on, on, hell I don't even know what on, that's the point!"

"You think Gaara knew about any of that when he took the Kazekage position at age 12?" Tsunade snorted. "You can have advisors handle the admin while you're learning the ropes. Plus, with those clones of yours you can learn those ropes pretty damn fast."

"But...Granny Tsunade, you know me." He stressed. "I'm a moron!"

"Naruto, Hashirama was an moron." Tsunade replied. "Raikage A still is an moron. Hell, look at me! I'm a Doctor, not a politician. The point of the job isn't to decide on the best economic policy to bring the country out of a recession, that's the Daimyo's business. The job is to be a figurehead, be a leader. Be willing to make the hard choices, and more importantly: make the right ones." She looked down. "Naruto...I know the offer might be overwhelming, and I know the instinct is to back down. But you've earned this position. And...you're ready for it, if you'll have it."

Naruto was silent for a good long while. Outside, the sun was slowly heading towards the horizon.

"Weird, that I got the same offer from the Infinite Tsukuyomi not that long ago." He mused. "But the context's way different. That hat came with an offer to keep dreaming, but this one comes with a new set of responsibilities, more to take care of. This hat's offering me the chance to wake up."

He looked at it. Sighed. "Maybe I'm just really contrary..."

He looked back up at Tsunade. "I lived in an orphanage 'till I was five. Then they kicked me out, and I had to fend for myself for the next seven years. I went to ninja school, where they taught me magic and sneaking and how to commit political assassinations. I grew up believing that there was something about me that meant I was bad, and everyone except the nicest people were gonna treat me like dirt because of it, and then I did whatever it took to make that thought go away. I've fought criminals, terrorists, demons, gods, all with a grin on my face and a silly quip ready to go, and whenever I got tired I grit my teeth and pushed forwards. I always had my eyes on the future, and I...I think that made me miss a lot of stuff in the present."

He sighed, face full of yearning. "I wanna stay up late and go to parties, then crash until two the next afternoon. I wanna get addicted to a videogame for a few months. I mean, I've never even played Minecraft! I wanna stress over something that's completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things. I wanna kiss my girlfriend; not because the world's about to end or because it's part of some big dramatic moment, just because it'd be fun. I want to be a normal 17 year old, at least for a little bit. Try and salvage some semblance of a childhood."

He glanced at the Hokage hat, and then looked away, smiling apologetically. The setting sun framed his features, as he declared "Just for once, I think it's okay for me to hit the snooze button. In a few years, I'm gonna be the greatest Hokage the world has ever seen...But I think I'm gonna be a kid first."

...Tsunade Senju had sat heavily back down about halfway through that.

"...Wow." She said, flatly. "That...was the most amazing thing I have ever heard in my goddamn life."

"Thank you."

"No, for real, I feel like I legally owe you money or something for the privilege of witnessing that."

Naruto snorted. "Granny, you're reaching dangerous levels of honesty here."

"That's because I don't even know what to say. I-" She narrowed her eyes. "No, wait, I do. You just ruined my chance of an early retirement, you little shit!"

Naruto's face fell. "Ah. Uh-"

"Get the fuck out of my office!"

"Yes ma'am!" He gave the wrong type of salute, and bolted (at very reasonable, subsonic levels) towards the door.

She stopped him when his hand was on the doorknob. "And Naruto?"

He turned around, gulping. "Yes?"

Tsunade let her features soften. "Enjoy yourself, kid."

And there the smile was again. "You got it! I'll send a shadow clone in tomorrow for the next set of missions!"

He threw open the door, charging out with a whoop and letting it clatter shut behind him.

Somebody once asked could I spare some change for gas?

I need to get myself away from this place.

I said yep! What a concept, I could use a little fuel myself

And we could all use a little change...

"Okay okay okay, hold on, let's do this chronologically." Sasuke held his hands up to stop his teammates rising bickering, then pulled a notebook out of his pocket and started flipping through pages.

"Okay, here we go...So first off I took out Sasori. So that's one point to me." He drew a tally mark in the book, pointed at Naruto. "You thought you killed Deidara but that was actually a clay clone so it didn't count, and the one who actually got him was-"

"Me." Hinata nodded. "Not long after I-"

"Ap bap bap, chronologically-" Sasuke shushed her, weathering her annoyed glare. "So, the next one to die was-"

"Was Orochimaru." Hinata interrupted again. "Which I was about to say-"

"She was about to say it." Naruto pointed out. The fact that her head was currently in his lap while he was stroking her hair might have resulted in some bias in that judgement.

"Yeah but Orochimaru doesn't count, does he? We established this, he was already ex-Akatsuki." Sasuke stared them down, and got a mumbled "Fine." in response.

"Alright then. Then I killed Hidan, Naruto killed Kakuzu, and Hinata killed Deidara." He gave them each a point. "So are we still saying Neji counts? I mean he was a spy-"

"He was wearing the goddamn uniform when I killed him. If you try and take that point away we're gonna have problems." Hinata lazily pointed a threatening finger at him.

"Yeah, fine. So that's one to you. And then Naruto killed Pain, and then I killed Kisame. So we're at three to me, two to Hinata and two to Naruto on Akatsuki kills before the war starts."

"...Are yoou all really dooing this?" Asked Forsooth from a few metres away.

"Ssh!" Kudos bumped him with a wing. "I wanna know who wins!"

Team Seven was sat on a moderately sized planetoid in the Angel Mountains. They'd decided that they were essentially camping there for the night, having set up a fire in the middle and tents all around. On other planetoids surrounding them, various owls were congregated (along with a few toads Naruto had been granted permission to summon). Gamabunta was sharing combat tips with Icarus, while Ma and Pa were in the middle of a delightful conversation with Athena about their respective grandkids.

"Proposition." Naruto raised a hand. "I vote we count White Zetsu as Akatsuki since they were working with Black Zetsu before the war-"

"Proposition rejected!" Sasuke shot back. "Naruto, if we count White Zetsu then you win by like fifty thousand."

"Exactly!"

"Maybe we only count the important White Zetsu." Hinata offered. "Like-"

"Like the one possessing Yamato that you killed?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Hell no, that's not a valid distinction. White Zetsu don't count. But you do get Black Zetsu, which bumps you up to three..."

"Oh yeah, how is he, by the way?" Naruto looked down at Hinata. "Bothering you?"

"A little?" Hinata admitted. "He does a lot of incoherent screaming but I've mostly tuned him out at this point. I could probably kill him completely now we're out of the proverbial woods, but I was thinking the info might be useful."

"Aww, thanks Hinata!" Naruto leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. "You're the best!"

"I know." She preened.

Sasuke shivered. "Blegh. Moving on...Obito. How are we doing Obito?"

"I put in most of the work for that fight!" Naruto insisted.

"The Edos put in most of the work for that fight." Sasuke countered. "And I got in the last hit."

"You freed the Bijuu, you didn't get the killing blow." Hinata objected. "I think Madara did that. Or Obito himself, technically, with the Rinne rebirth."

Naruto flashed orange briefly, and Kurama's voice echoed out "I think freeing the Bijuu is a very cash money thing to do, and should be worth all the points."

"No, it shouldn't!" Naruto protested, before whining "Kurama, we're trying to make me win!"

"I vote that Obito doesn't count, since that wasn't even remotely a one-vs-one." Hinata offered. "The only person to 1v1 him was you, Naruto, and you nearly died."

"I'd've taken him..." Naruto grumbled. "But I'll allow it, no points for Obito. Wait, hold on, that puts us at 3-3-2! Now I'm losing!"

Sasuke and Hinata shared a glance.

"I'll take it." Sasuke said.

"Me too." Hinata agreed.

"What? No! Betrayal!" Naruto glared at Hinata. She smiled at him. He glared harder. "Grr...stop being cute." He looked up at a particularly smug Sasuke, trying to think of escapes. "What if we include rematches with Edos?"

"Ooh, yes!" Hinata beamed. "Then I get a point for re-sealing Pain and Kudos gets a point for using Itachi to get Neji!"

"WOO!" Kudos let out a celebratory trill.

"We're not counting Edos." Sasuke swept a hand through the air. "Stop cheating. Oh yeah Kudos, how's your eye? It's not hurting, is it?"

"Nah, it's cool." Kudos blinked at them, showing off his single red Mangekyo. "And I really mean that, it is super cool. All the other owls think it's awesome. Like it doesn't hurt me or anything, but if I push chakra into it I can make it go-" the eye flashed an eerie red, "-like that! I'm a little worried that when I grow it won't grow with me, and it'll just fall out, but other than that it's not a problem."

"Sweet! As head Uchiha I officially dub thee an honorary member of the Uchiha clan." Sasuke paused, decided he couldn't be bothered to get up, then held a hand out. A small yet long Susanno blade manifested in the hand, which he used to make a knighting motion on the head of the Owl. "Congratulations."

"YES!" Kudos jumped for joy (narrowly missing the sword), swirling around in the air.

"Not to mention, I think being our summon also makes him an honorary Hyuuga?" Hinata pointed out, giggling. "Which, given how significant our two clans are, would make him something like the fourth most politically powerful person in the village."

"Hah! Oh that's brilliant. Chain of command just goes 'Tsunade, Sasuke, Hinata, and then some random fucking Owl'." Sasuke turned back. "Naruto, where do you think you are? Given that, you know, you aren't the Hokage."

"Oh, as if either of you would ever let me order you about." Naruto had obviously already told them about his decision, and answered on autopilot. "I dunno, I think some Jinchurikki laws put me as like second most important (after Tsunade) but I can't exactly call down an ANBU and go 'hey, I'm the jailor for the murder symbiote, shine my shoes'. Although come to think of it, a lot of the Bijuu laws might need to be changed after all this..."

Hinata turned back to ask Sasuke something else, and Naruto looked down in thought. He had, in actual fact, been almost completely ignoring the conversation to instead focus on trying to weasel out of his loss. Eventually he looked up and snapped his fingers, "KONAN!"

"...Yes?" Sasuke asked, then caught on, "Wait, no way-"

"Konan was gonna fight me after I was done with Pain, but then she didn't because she knew she was gonna lose." Naruto declared, proudly. "That means I win. She literally surrendered specifically to me, afterwards. I have the paper flowers to prove it. I beat Konan so now we're three-three-three."

Sasuke and Hinata exchanged another glance.

"Of course, Naruto." Sasuke said. "Three all, it's a tie. Well played."

Naruto's face rose. Then fell again. "Oh, well now it feels like I'm just being pitied. Oh son of a bitch, that's your solution? Make my victory feel hollow?"

"Yup." Sasuke grinned.

"Y'all're meanies..." Naruto sulked. "You know what, whatever. If you want shadow clone servants you can have them. I can make thousands of the buggers. Just don't expect anything they cook for you to be, you know, edible. Guess I could buy you ramen?"

"I mean I'll take it, but we hardly need you to buy our food." Sasuke pointed out. "No offence, but we're both loaded."

"Uh, me too?" Naruto pointed out. "Did I not mention the payout for saving us from Pain? I got given a cheque that just says 'Yes' on it underlined three times."

"Still, you can relax." Hinata moved herself up and draped herself on him a bit more heavily, leaning her head into the crook of his neck. "Come on, you know this was all for bragging rights anyways."

"You two better not start fucking where I can see or hear you..." Sasuke rolled his eyes, flopping onto his back by the fire.

There was a moment of quiet, punctuated by the whistling of the wind and the occasional flap of wings.

"Stars are looking hella dope." Sasuke said, after a moment.

Hinata and Naruto both looked up briefly.

"Yup."

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah..." Sasuke paused. "So since we're done with the Akatsuki and Danzo and our families and Madara...what should we do now?"

They all looked at each other.

"...Something really really stupid, probably."

"Oh, absolutely."

"Ooh, I actually have an idea for that-"

Well, the years start coming and they don't stop coming,

Fed to the rules and they hit the ground running,

Didn't make sense not to live for fun,

Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb...

Twas 5:32AM, and Konoha was as quiet as it had been since the Infinite Tsukuyomi. A lot of the emergency work had been completed, meaning now as the people began to adjust to the new normal, they also started to build up normal sleep schedules again. Plenty of ninja were about, obviously, but it seemed like the rest of the village was trying to catch as many Zs as they could. Not that that would last much longer. The night was beginning to recede, and the sky was brightening.

There was a building, hugging the side of the great cliffs, that had managed to survive both Pain's attack and the subsequent root swarm relatively intact. The tiled roof hardly made a sound as a lithe form in black dropped down onto it, looked about, then sat down on the edge, legs casually kicking.

A few minutes later, another figure did the same, sitting itself down just next to the other.

"Hey." Itachi said.

"Hey." Neji replied.

They sat there for a few minutes, just watching the sky.

"Imma be honest." Itachi said. "When we started this mission way back when, I really didn't think it would take, you know. Ten years."

"And two separate resurrection events." Neji added.

"Yeah."

"How's Izumi taking it?"

"Still kind of in shock, I think." Itachi scratched at his chin. "She had to watch me die, and then I just...showed up in front of her on a battlefield a few weeks later."

"But she's happy?" Neji asked.

"Oh yeah. Mostly just chalked it up to me being literally too slippery to die." Itachi watched his feet swing for a few seconds. "What about Hanabi? How's she taking everything?"

"Overwhelmed, in a world." Neji replied. He turned his head to look in an apparently random direction, which Itachi knew to mean he was checking up on her. "She's not used to so many people, so much going on all at once." He smiled. "But she's ecstatic to finally be able to interact with it all, rather than just watch it from a distance. I'm sure she'll adapt soon."

"Good to hear."

Another silence.

"I keep trying to think," Itachi mused, "if there's anything we missed. Any more loose ends. Like, did we find out what happened to that fox Gaara got his sister?"

"Uzu is doing fine." Neji reassured. "Old, for a fox, but superbly taken after as I understand it."

"You were keeping track of that thing?"

"Of course. It's cute."

"Heheheh..." Itachi sighed. "It just...it feels a lot to let go of, you know? It's like I spent half my life preparing for This One Thing, the rest doing This One Thing, and now...now what? Who am I when it's over?"

"Still incredibly sexy." Neji pointed out.

"Gay." The response was immediate.

Neji smiled. "And you still have that."

"Still have 'the gay'?"

"The sass. And more importantly, the in-joke. What you and I have built between us, it's not going to go away just because we're done protecting my cousin."

Itachi wrinkled his nose up. "You're saying that my personality will survive...because of homoerotic subtext?"

"If that's what works." Neji smirked. "But I'm also referring to the bonds you've built up with everyone else in your life. How was the family dinner?"

"...Really nice, actually." Itachi admitted. "We're still a far cry from inviting you, I think, but mum and dad have said that I can bring Izumi along next time." He looked down and blinked. "Huh. 'Mum and Dad'. That's new, it's just been 'Fugaku' in my head for like ten years."

He glanced back over at Neji. "Where's this coming from? Last I checked you were just planning to...well. Give up. Finish the mission and let yourself...you know."

"I was." Neji admitted. "But I realised something."

"Oh?"

"During the fight with Hinata." He continued. "She set up and pulled out this absolutely beautiful lightning release technique."

"The Gryphon?"

"Yeah, that one. I remember looking up at it, thinking, 'This is it. This is her Coup de Grace. This is where I fall on my proverbial sword'. And then it came down, and...I used my Vishnu and tanked it."

He chuckled. "It was odd. At first I thought it was cowardice, that drove me to keep trying to fight her until my body just shut down underneath me, even as my mind wanted at each moment to let her next strike land. But later, thinking back on it...it was simpler than that."

Neji's eyes tracked over to the horizon. The first glimpses of light were peeking through the trees. "Even with nothing to live for, I didn't want to die. That was all. It might have been my destiny to die that day. I may now have no destiny left. But just this? Just...being? It's worth it."

Itachi nodded, following his gaze. Sucked in a breath.

"As highest ranking Jonin still alive aware of the full extent of our mission, I exercise my right to dictate further action, add or remove additional objectives, or declare the mission's official conclusion.

All primary objectives, including but not limited to:

-the prevention of the Uchiha clan's coup,
-the extraction and safekeeping of Hanabi Hyuuga,
-the neutralisation of the threat represented by Toneri Otsutsuki,
-the infiltration and subsequent elimination of the organisation known as the Akatsuki,
-the elimination of traitorous Konoha agents such as Shimura Danzo,
-the support of the emotional, mental, and physical development of Hinata Hyuuga and Sasuke Uchiha,
-and the protection and safekeeping of Konohagakure, the greater Fire country, and the world,

Have been completed to my satisfaction. As such, all active operatives are to cease further operations and return to the Hokage for mission report and debrief.

Operation White Eyes is over."

He finished, and turned his head to look at his friend. Neji turned back to him, and nodded once. They shared a smile.

Then Itachi slung his arm over Neji's shoulder, and the two returned to silence, watching the sun rise over Konoha together.

So much to do, so much to see,

So what's wrong with taking the back streets?

You'll never know if you don't go!

You'll never shine if you don't glow!

Kaguya Otsutsuki was.

That in itself might have brought with it a whole lot of panic and confusion for her, given that last she checked she most certainly wasn't.

But she was, and also she was in the dark, and she was struggling to remain lucid. Her consciousness flickered, memories flashing by around her, along with distant voices.

"Yes! It worked! I knew we could do it!"

"Whoa, chill, dude, our ratios are still off, look at her. Hold on, just let me..."

Almost unconsciously, she felt the chakra around herself. Yes, it was being done awfully, and she instinctively reached for her power to try and rectify that.

...And couldn't.

Her power wasn't there.

"Oh, fuck, did you guys feel that?"

"Yep, alright, make for damn sure she only gets what we're feeding her. Get the chakra in the right amounts, you're the one with the Yin-Yang release, I'll try and give her something to look at in case she starts to go crazy..."

The world came into being around her. It was a simple landscape, a wide grassland dotted with trees, one clearly built rather than real. But there was still no her- ah, wait, there. Enough chakra flowed into her now that she was able to construct an avatar for herself.

It mimicked the way she had looked in life; long flowing white hair, a billowing white dress decorated in gold and purple. Her eyes were white as well. At least, her first two were. The Rinne-Sharingan in her forehead glowed red, and she floated high above the ground.

"What are you doing? Cease your disgusting violations of my goddess! You dare to corrall her, she who is so far above you all-"

"Alright, shut him up. Okay, are we stable? Are the safeties in place?"

"Anything goes wrong this whole place isolates and collapses, we're good. Alright, buckle up folks, we're going in."

The voices ceased to echo, and four figures warped into existence in front of her.

"My lady!" Screeched a shadow. "Do not listen to them, do not trust them, these defilers sought to-"

Another figure, a human (or was she?) reached forward and grabbed the shadow by the back of it's head. It vanished. "Sorry." She said to the other two. "If he's not going to behave himself, I'll keep him locked up."

The other two, one blond and one dark haired, were exchanging a series of very frantic gestures. Eventually, the blond gulped, and looked up at her.

She looked down at him.

"Uh...Hi?" Said the blond.

"Fuck's sake Naruto, really?" Hissed the dark haired one, "That's what you lead with-"

"Fuck off, you made me do it!" The blond coughed, and looked back at her. "Um. Hi, Kaguya?"

Kaguya...yes, that was her name. The chakra flowing into her was stabilising, the haze over her thoughts lifting. Words, of course. She manipulated what little chakra she had.

"Yes, I am Kaguya. Who...are you?" She noticed that she'd forgotten to make her avatar's mouth move, and from their nervous body language they clearly had too, so resolved to rectify that later. Multitasking was getting easier, and in fact she began to realise that she did recognise them.

"Hamura? Hagoromo? Is that you?"

They exchanged glances. "Not exactly." The blond spoke up. "I'm Naruto, this is Sasuke, that's Hinata. I'm not surprised you recognise our charka; we're the descendants of your children."

Kaguya took some time to process that, but once it's meaning registered, her face lit up like the sun. "Grandbabies?" She squealed.

The three exchanged more glances. "Uh. What?"

"My boys had children!" Kaguya flew closer to them, causing them to jump back in surprise. "How many? How cute? Do you have pictures?"

"From fuck knows how many thousand years ago..?" Sasuke muttered.

Something about that should have bothered Kaguya, but it didn't, as she flew up into the air spinning and swooned. "My boys are all grown up! I wonder who they took as their brides? Did Hagoromo couple with that one he was courting when he...murdered me..." her face fell. "He murdered me."

And he had. Her boys, they had...but if so, then what...

She turned back to the three visitors. "What...happened? Where am I?"

Hinata spoke up. "Lady Kaguya, you merged with the Shinju Tree. When your children defeated you, they sealed you inside Hagoromo. Then he split you into many parts, and...that was all a long time ago."

"We've reconstructed you." Sasuke said. "I think is the best way to describe it. Naruto brought the Bijuu back together, Hinata has your 'husband', and I wield the Rinnegan. I have no fucking idea how this worked, but your essence seems to just be bound to the chakra. Or, maybe you are the chakra? Uh, your worshipfulness."

Kaguya looked between them, trying to understand. "You brought me back?"

"We did, yep."

Her eyes narrowed. "Where is my power?"

"Ah." Naruto shuffled. "We're holding onto that. After the last time someone had the power of a Juubi Jinchurikki...yeah we don't want a repeat of that."

Kaguya looked at her descendants, and began to scowl. Many of the terms they used were foreign to her, but... "You do not mean to restore me to my rightful place as ruler of this world?"

"Define 'rightful'." Sasuke said, pointedly.

"No." Hinata simplified.

Kaguya frowned in confusion. "Then...what do you want? Who are you?"

The trio looked at each other.

"We're Team Seven." Hinata said. "We protect this world."

"And you're a dimension hopping ninja wizard from space!" Sasuke added, brightly.

"And most importantly." Naruto finished. "You aren't alone."

She looked between them. "...No. I am not."

"In which case, Kaguya Otsutsuki." Team Seven looked at her. "We have a lot of questions to ask you."

Hey now, you're an All Star, get your game on, go! Play!

Hey now, you're a rockstar, get the show on, get, paid!

And all that glitters is gold!

Only shooting stars break the mold!

So...here we are. I have no idea what to say.

Well, I do, actually. I am so annoyed I didn't quite get this to an even hundred chapters...

So I started this project in summer 2018. Yeah. Ninety-four weeks ago. Holy fuck. I don't know what's more impressive, the fact that I somehow managed to never once miss an update in that period or...okay yeah I do know what's more impressive. 'Let's hope this doesn't die an ugly death' I said. I think I jinxed myself in the best possible way.

White Eyes has just barely crested 400,000 words. At the time of writing it has over 600 favourites, over 700 followers, and close to 800 reviews. 800.

This isn't just me jerking myself off here. I don't say this often, but I am genuinely blown away by the support this fic has gotten. Especially compared to my previous top dog in Dishonoured, which barely got 50 reviews in the same amount of time. I can imagine that that's in part due to how much more popular the Naruto archive is overall (my Dishonoured fic is like 5th to show up if you search by follows; White Eyes isn't anywhere near the top pages. Hey maybe if you had nothing else to do you could check that out~ ;D).

Still, thank you all so much for taking the time to read this. And an extra special shoutout to the absolute mad lads who've reviewed on basically every chapter. You know who you are. We've probably talked. You're all legends. I'd buy you a pint except that we're all in lockdown and I'm broke.

I've learned a lot from this. First and foremost that writing is so much easier if I just...let myself go. Swear like a sailor, fill it with stupid jokes and memes, have fun with it, and then clean it up in the edit if I really have to. Having somewhere I can just outpour this stuff has really helped me improve, too; looking back at the start and comparing it to now, I've gotten a lot smoother at the sentence level. Stringing together dialogues that don't sound boring while making sure everyone knows who's saying what, etcetera. It's one of those things you don't notice you're doing wrong, not until you look back at what you wrote a year ago and go "oooh...yikes."

My biggest issue with this story isn't much of an issue at all, more a point of contention. That being: it feels like it's missing bits. The brilliance of fanfiction is that you can go into a story assuming everyone already knows everything. From jutsu, to plot points, to eventual character progression, etcetera. It's great for making in-jokes, but it's also useful because there's so much I just don't have to write.

I mean, I skipped Naruto vs Pain! As well as countless other smaller battles. And I made reference to lots of events that y'all know happened because you've seen the show, but for those who didn't? They'd be like 'What?' If I tried to publish this alone Checkov would have grabbed his gun from the wall and shot me with it.

I wanted to put in more on Madara and Hashirama's past interactions. I wanted to put more on Obito, Kakashi, and Rin's backstory. I wanted to do more in a lot of places, but as I've said before, one of the main things I was trying to do was cut down on Naruto's bloated pacing. 700 diggity damned chapters, guys. I got it done in a seventh of that. Then again, Manga are definitely a lot less information dense, so Kishimoto might actually have me beat there, but whatever.

So, fix plotholes, streamline the story, make the characters more interesting, and have a blast while doing it. Those were the goals; it's up to you to decide whether I pulled it off.

Now I'm sure you're all wondering about a sequel.

I do have ideas about that, as a matter of fact. I have things I want to try with Boruto, taking this idea forwards into that era. Most importantly, making a story where Boruto isn't a carbon copy of his dad, and one where powerscaling isn't completely ignored (how the fuck is Boruto fighting Momoshiki he's fucking twelve and has none of the powerups that let his father match the guy's speed-)

Like, I'm not one of the people who does pixel measurements on manga panels for strength feats, (I think a lot of that's bogus. Here's an example: An unremarkable ninja summoning a metre cubed of water in a jutsu would require almost 9*10^19 joules of energy. That's more than a 10,000 megaton bomb, and supressed Edo Tobirama made way more than that vs Hiruzen (don't even get me started on Hashirama's structures...). These characters obviously aren't wielding that much power, or they'd just attack with the strength to level cities, so it's obviously just some energy fascimile of water, which is why jutsu absorbtion techniques can eat that up but not regular water. So stop saying shit like Madara's pulling meteors from the asteroid belt at like 10% the speed of light, that would be the least efficient attack method possible for him if it was the truth.)

But even I agree that you need to keep consistency between the strengths of your characters. You made this powercliffing bed, now lie in it.

But ignoring that rant, I want to take a break from Naruto for a bit, and I need to wait for the manga to progress more before I nail any critical plot details down because I need to know important lore stuff to plan what happens. Like, how does the Karma mark work? Who's Momoshiki Isshiki? What happened between him and Kaguya? Why did the Otsutsuki wait thousands of years before chasing Kaguya down for her shit? How are the Otsutsuki immortal? What does the chakra fruit do to them? How do they consume it that's different to what Kaguya did that was apparently illegal? What's Kawaki's deal? What does Boruto's dojutsu do? Remember, he still hasn't technically got the damn thing in the manga yet.

I've seen Naruto fics written before the ending was known, and some of the conclusions they came to are pretty funny. So I can't make any promises as to if or when a sequel will appear. But your odds of it happening at some point are pretty good. I'll make sure to add an extra teaser chapter here when it happens, so don't unfollow if you're still interested.

If you're looking for other Naruto fics to read in the meantime, I'd reccomend 'It's For a Good Cause, I Swear!' by Sarah1281, 'Black Cloaks, Red Clouds' by Archontruth, or my personal favourite, 'Lighting Up The Dark' by Velorien, all of which I enjoyed. The first is done, the second (depressingly) cut off right before the end, and the final is still (very intermittently) uploading.

So, that's all from me, I think. Thanks again for reading this far. Feel free to review or DM me if you have questions, requests, feedback (or fanart? No? Is it vain for me to hope for that? okay...) or anything else.

And now, if you'll all excuse me. I have exams to prepare for, videogames to play, anime to watch, and a Skyrim fanfiction in progress that I've been ignoring for far too long...

Hokage Dattebayo, ya fucking weebs.

And all that glitters is gold...

Only shooting stars break the mold...

-Smash Mouth: All Star