The Great Hall felt larger in the silence that followed the collapse of the Domain. Without the pressure of a thousand diverging futures, the sound of the wind rattling the iron shutters seemed deafening.
Arahata lay on the cold stone, a fallen idol of fractured gold and ink.
"Check his vitals!" Ay, the Raikage, barked, though he didn't move toward the fallen man. His own hand was still trembling, the phantom sensation of his heart failing still echoing in his nerves.
Gaara's sand moved first, not to strike, but to gently roll Arahata onto his back. "His pulse is thin. The chakra in his system isn't just exhausted—it's changing. It's becoming static."
Onoki hovered lower, his face grim. "Kill him now. That wasn't just a genjutsu. He didn't mess with our minds; he messed with reality itself. A man who can make 'probability' a weapon is too dangerous to leave breathing. He almost made my heart stop just by considering it."
"He's dying anyway, Gramps," Naruto said, his voice flat. He was standing over Arahata, looking at the black vine-like patterns that now clouded the man's temples and forehead. "Can't you see it? The jutsu is eating him."
"All the more reason to end it cleanly," Onoki retorted.
Before another word could be spoken, a cane struck the stone floor with a sharp, echoing crack.
Kurogane Mei stepped between the Kage and Arahata. She was blind, but she stood with the unerring precision of someone who saw through a different lens. "You will not touch him. He is no longer a Sixth Kage. He is no longer a threat. He is merely a man with fifty-eight hours of life left."
"And who are you to dictate the terms to the Five Kage?" the Raikage growled.
"I am the person who sat in his silence when the world was too loud for him," Mei said. Behind her, Ren stood with his hands raised in a Gentle Fist stance, his Byakugan flaring.
"The Land of Iron is a neutral ground," Mifune intervened, his voice heavy with authority. "And as General, I claim custody of this prisoner. We will move him to the medical wing. No executions will take place until the threat is verified. For now, look at the boy's eyes. Does that look like a man who can still fight?"
They looked.
Arahata's eyes were open, but the golden rings were gone. His pupils were blown wide, vacant, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. He wasn't tracking the trajectories of dust particles anymore. He was just... looking.
Six hours later, Arahata woke in a room of grey stone. It was cold, but a brazier flickered in the corner. He was tied to a medical table by seal-scribed restraints designed to suppress chakra, but they were unnecessary. He felt as though his bones had been replaced by lead.
The "Grid" was gone.
Usually, even in sleep, his brain received a constant data-stream of "could-be's." He would see the door opening before it happened; he would see the conversation end before it began.
Now, there was only the Now.
The door opened. Naruto Uzumaki walked in, carrying two steaming bowls of miso ramen. He looked tired—his orange jumpsuit was singed, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
Arahata watched him. No golden rings appeared in his eyes. He didn't see Naruto as a singularity anymore. He just saw a kid who looked like he'd been through a long day.
"The doctors say you've got about two and a half days," Naruto said, pulling up a wooden stool. "They've never seen chakra pathways like yours. It's like they've been turned into carbon. You used it all up, didn't you? Your future?"
"A small price to pay," Arahata croaked, his voice like dry leaves. "To try and buy a world that didn't hurt."
Naruto handed him a pair of chopsticks. When Arahata's hands remained bound, Naruto looked at the seals, shrugged, and began to feed him, one noodle at a time. It was an act of profound, humiliating, beautiful simplicity.
Arahata chewed slowly. The salt, the heat, the fat—it was overwhelming. When he had the Jūgan active, flavor was a chemical composition he predicted before the first bite. Now, the surprise of the broth hitting his tongue made his eyes sting.
"You did it on purpose, didn't you?" Arahata asked after a long silence. "You collapsed my Domain by refusing to have a second thought. You didn't fight my probability... you ignored it."
"I didn't ignore it," Naruto said, blowing on a spoonful of broth. "I just decided that if the world was gonna end or I was gonna fail, I'd rather be the guy who tried than the guy who watched it happen in his head. You've been living in ten thousand versions of today, Arahata. Which one of 'em felt like this? Like eating soup?"
Arahata looked at the broth. "None. In my mind, the soup was always finished. The taste was always known. The moment was always a memory before it happened."
Arahata leaned his head back against the stone wall. The black stain was now a permanent mask across the top half of his face. He could feel it touching the edges of his consciousness—the beginning of the end.
"I want to stay here," Arahata said.
"In prison?"
"In the Present. In the one where the ramen is hot and I don't know what you're going to say next. It's… exhausting. But it's the first time I've been awake in seventeen years."
Naruto stood up, picking up the empty bowls. "Good. Because there's a lot of people who want to talk to you before the time's up. Your friends are outside. They won't leave."
Arahata closed his eyes—truly closed them. For the first time, he didn't see the light through the lids. "Naruto-kun?"
"Yeah?"
"You asked me how I could maintain my decision without calculation. I have the answer now."
"What's that?"
"I can't. I just... I choose the soup. I choose to see the end come without looking at it first."
Naruto smiled—the same wide, ridiculous grin that had broken a god's logic. "Told ya. Sleep good, Arahata. Tomorrow's gonna be a surprise. I promise."
As Naruto left, Arahata lay in the dark.
Fifty-one hours, twelve minutes.
For the first time in his life, he didn't check the clock. He just waited for the sound of the rain against the window. He waited to hear it fall—one drop at a time—just because it wanted to.