Quote: "Some dreams don't shatter in noise… they fade in a single, quiet heartbeat."
Naruto Uzumaki didn't understand true pain the death brought.
He only knew pain from cold eyes from villagers , them keeping distance from him always , the pain from not being acknowledged by them , pain from Sakura harsh remarks on him and so on.
A sudden, strange pain of cold and dread that rushed through him as he moved—no, flew—between Haku and Sasuke was unnerving to say the least.
One moment he had been shouting, his voice raw with desperate determination, and the next … everything slowed.
Sound dulled.
The world stretched thin and distant.
Sasuke's eyes were wide.
That was the last clear thing Naruto saw.
Then his body hit the cold bridge.
He didn't feel the ground. He didn't feel much at all. The battlefield blurred at the edges of his vision, colours blending together , sounds becoming deafening.
His limbs felt heavy, unresponsive, as if they no longer truly belonged to him.
Did I… mess up?
[ Author thought - you really mess up my boy]
The thought drifted weakly through his fading mind.
Naruto wanted to move. He wanted to laugh it off like always, to jump up and yell that it was nothing to him, that he was fine.
But his body would not listen.
The cold grew deeper.
His thoughts, however, grew painfully clear.
…So this is it?
Images flooded his mind in broken flashes:
The Hokage Monument under the sunset.
Iruka's stern but caring eyes.
Sakura's frustrated scolding.
Sasuke turning his back.
The villagers' hateful glares.
His own stubborn grin in the mirror.
I said I'd become Hokage…
His chest felt tight—not from pain, but from something heavier.
I said I wouldn't run away anymore…
A quiet, choking realization settled over him.
I didn't make it.
Tears welled up in his fading eyes, slipping silently into his hair at the sides of his face. There was no strength left to sob. Only a weak tremor of breath escaped him.
"I… wanted them to look at me," his mind whispered in the dark.
"I wanted them to say my name…"
The world around him shook with sound again—
Haku apology with sad eyes as if saying they could have been best friends if not for the circumstances that the world has let in.
Chirping sound coming form Kakashi chidori as it was about to be slammed onto Zabuza
Sakura keeping her guard to protect Tazuna
Sasuke cry for him and his rage towards Haku
but Naruto was already drifting beyond it.
His dream—so loud, so bright, so impossible—was dimming.