Ichiraku Ramen --- Day Twenty
Five-thirty in the morning.
Bai Yan was starting the broth.
The Observer's Anchor had been showing him things since yesterday evening.
Getting clearer.
The water-through-glass quality that had characterized his forward vision for three weeks had been thinning.
This morning it was gone.
Not blurry.
Not filtered.
Clear.
He stood at the stove with the ladle in his hand and looked at what the Anchor was showing him.
The Moon.
The array chamber.
Toneri at his window.
The seal --- still there, still holding, but with a quality of pressure that hadn't been present two weeks ago.
Something leaning against it from the inside.
The training stand.
Empty at this hour.
But marked everywhere with eighteen days of sessions.
The footprint of what had been built.
His own shop.
The counter.
The morning broth.
He looked at the image for a long time.
Then he set down the ladle.
He went to the front of the shop.
Ayame was already awake.
She was usually awake by five-fifteen.
She was setting out the morning bowls with the precise efficiency of someone who had done this ten thousand times and found it meditative.
She looked up.
She saw his face.
She went to the back room and came back with his spare apron.
The one he wore when he was going to be away from the shop for a while.
She held it out.
He looked at it.
"How long have you been waiting for this?" he said.
"Since the scroll appeared," she said. "But specifically since you stopped eating the chestnuts and started paying attention."
He took the apron.
He looked at her.
"I'll be back for the lunch service," he said.
"I know," she said.
"You'll be alright."
"Bai Yan." She looked at him steadily. "I ran this shop before you got here and I can run it while you're gone."
"I know."
"Go."
He went.
He found Naruto at the training stand.
The boy was there before sunrise the way he'd been there before sunrise for three weeks.
Cross-legged.
Eyes closed.
Counting something.
He sat down beside him.
He waited.
Naruto opened his eyes at six-forty-three.
"Bai Yan-san," he said.
"How long?" Bai Yan said.
"Ninety seconds," Naruto said. "The last hold."
Bai Yan looked at him.
The Sage Mode had left a residue on him the way training always did.
But different from chakra exhaustion.
Something more settled than that.
Like the natural energy had found its home.
"You're ready," Bai Yan said.
Not a question.
Naruto looked at him.
"The Moon?" he said.
"Yes."
Naruto was quiet for a moment.
He looked at the stand.
At eighteen days of mornings.
At the sleeping sparrow's branch.
"When?" he said.
"Today," Bai Yan said. "Or as close as the logistics allow."
Naruto nodded.
He didn't say are you sure or already or that's fast.
He just nodded.
"Do I need to bring anything?" he said.
Bai Yan thought about Toneri.
About a man who had maintained an array alone for twenty years and written a letter in plain language asking to meet the person he'd be synchronizing with.
He thought about what that person needed to meet.
Not the jinchūriki.
Not the anchor.
Not the Sage Mode practitioner.
Just Naruto.
"Your usual self," he said. "That's enough."
Naruto looked at him for a moment.
Then he smiled.
The real one.
Not performing anything.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay."
He stood.
"I need to tell Sasuke," he said.
"I know."
"And Kakashi."
"I'll handle Kakashi. You handle Sasuke."
"And Jiraiya-sensei."
"I'll handle Jiraiya too."
Naruto thought about what else needed to happen.
"The others," he said. "The beasts. The people who---"
"They'll know," Bai Yan said. "The Resonance Token will carry it when the time comes."
Naruto touched the token in his pocket.
He felt the warmth on the other side.
Present.
Aware.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay."
He turned to go.
"Naruto."
He stopped.
Bai Yan was looking at him.
The specific look he had when he was saying something true rather than strategic.
"The ramen shop will be here when you get back," he said.
Naruto looked at him.
At the man who had watched from the edges for seven years and had spent the last three weeks being present instead.
"I know," Naruto said.
He walked toward the training ground to find Sasuke.
Group Chat --- Private:
[Bai Yan @Moon Temple [Toneri]: The anchor is ready.]
He sent it.
Then waited.
Moon Temple
The message arrived at six-fifty-seven in the morning.
Toneri's local time.
He was in the array chamber.
Running the third diagnostic of the morning.
Not because it needed to be run again.
Because he'd been awake since before the Moon's dawn thinking about today.
He'd known it was coming.
The array instruments had been tracking the resonance changes in the anchor's chakra system for a week.
The rate of natural energy integration.
The Sage Mode development.
The specific quality of a person becoming what they were always going to be.
He'd known.
But reading the anchor is ready in plain common script was different from knowing it abstractly.
He set down the diagnostic tool.
He read the message twice.
He looked at the array around him.
At twenty years of maintenance.
At every replaced memory stone and checked seal and recalibrated conduit.
It was ready.
He had known it was ready for weeks.
He went to the window.
Earth was below.
Small.
Blue.
Far away.
With one golden point of light above one city that had been the source of everything for twenty days.
He thought about the letter he'd sent.
About I want to meet the anchor before the array activates.
About the reply that had said he's looking forward to meeting you and you're not doing this alone anymore.
He thought about preparing extra after reading that.
About how not alone had changed what ready felt like.
He pulled out a scroll.
He wrote a reply.
Two words.
Come soon.
He sent it.
He went to prepare the visitor's chamber.
Which had not been used in living memory.
Which had dust on the stones that he'd been avoiding thinking about.
He cleaned it.
Not with magic.
Just with a cloth and time.
He thought about what it would be like to meet a person who had said obviously when asked if he'd show up.
He thought it was going to be a good meeting.
Konoha --- Team 7's Training Ground
Naruto found Sasuke where he always found Sasuke at this hour.
Already working.
Sharingan at its low background level.
The new perception layer doing whatever it had been doing for five days.
Naruto walked in.
Sat against the post.
Sasuke ran his current set to completion.
Stopped.
He looked at Naruto's face.
"Today," he said.
"Bai Yan says I'm ready."
"You are."
Naruto looked at him.
"You're not going to ask?"
"I don't need to ask." Sasuke sat across from him. "The anchor preparation has been tracking at the right rate. The Sage Mode is functional. Toneri sent the message asking for the meeting. Bai Yan is the one who would know when the window aligned." He paused. "Today makes sense."
"It does," Naruto agreed.
They sat in the training ground for a moment.
Morning light.
The split post between them.
"Sasuke," Naruto said.
"Mm."
"When this is over---"
"Don't," Sasuke said.
Naruto looked at him.
"Don't do the thing where you make it sound like something might go wrong," Sasuke said. "Nothing is going to go wrong."
"I wasn't going to---"
"You were going to say something meaningful that implied uncertainty," Sasuke said. "Don't. Say it after."
Naruto held his gaze for a moment.
He thought about what he'd been about to say.
Something about rivalry and the ten-year ranking.
About whatever the unnamed thing in Sasuke's chakra was.
He decided Sasuke was right.
It would keep.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay. After."
"After," Sasuke agreed.
They sat for another moment.
"The Six Paths seed," Naruto said. "How's it tracking?"
"The perception clarity doubled in the last three days," Sasuke said. "The intention reading is less like water. More like---" He thought. "Glass. Like you said."
"Tobirama?"
"He says it's ahead of every projection he had." A pause. "He says that a lot."
"We keep doing that."
"Yes."
Naruto looked at his hands.
At the Sage Mode residue.
At the token in his pocket.
"We both crossed the threshold in the same week," he said.
"Yes."
"Without coordinating."
"Yes."
"The rivals ranking said come back in ten years."
"I know."
"By then---"
"Yes," Sasuke said. Simply. Like an answer to a question that didn't need to be fully asked.
Naruto understood.
Yes.
Yes, in ten years whatever they were building now would be what it was supposed to be.
Yes, the unnamed thing would have a name.
Yes, the rival ranking would finally be filled.
"Okay," Naruto said.
He stood.
He offered a hand.
Sasuke looked at it.
The same way he'd looked at it on the morning Naruto told him about the anchor.
The same calculation.
The same outcome.
He took it.
They pulled each other up.
"I'll be back by tomorrow," Naruto said.
"I know," Sasuke said.
"Don't do anything impressive while I'm gone."
"I'll try."
"I'm serious---"
"I said I'll try."
Naruto looked at him.
"That means you're going to do something impressive."
"It means I'll try not to."
"SASUKE---"
"Go to the moon, Naruto."
Naruto opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Smiled.
Not the performing grin.
Just---smiled.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay."
He walked toward the arena.
Toward Bai Yan and Kakashi and whatever the logistics of going to the moon actually involved.
Sasuke watched him go.
He activated the Sharingan fully.
He read the intention in Naruto's chakra.
Moving forward.
Present.
Not reaching for the outcome.
Just going.
He watched until Naruto turned the corner.
He turned back to the training ground.
He started the next set.
Hokage's Office --- Konoha
Bai Yan stood across from Hiruzen.
"You're proposing to take the anchor to the Moon Temple," Hiruzen said.
"Yes."
"Physically."
"Yes."
"How."
Bai Yan had been thinking about this.
The original story had a Moon mechanism --- a specific jutsu using the connected teleportation arrays.
But those weren't accessible yet.
Not in this timeline.
He had something else.
"I have the Azure Dragon," he said. "It can make the transit."
Hiruzen looked at him.
"The Azure Dragon," he said.
"One of the Four Divine Beasts, yes."
"...And it can fly to the moon."
"It can traverse the distance, yes."
"In how long?"
"A few hours."
Hiruzen was quiet.
He thought about every classified information protocol he'd ever established.
He thought about a man who had stopped time with a finger-flick eating chestnuts in the civilian section.
"Who goes?" he said.
"Naruto," Bai Yan said. "Myself. Kakashi."
"Not Jiraiya?"
"Jiraiya stays. In case something moves on the ground while we're in transit." He paused. "He'll be more useful here."
Hiruzen thought about this.
"Sasuke?"
"No. He's needed here too. The perception work --- if something shifts on the Kaguya resonance while we're transit, Sasuke can read it before anyone else."
Hiruzen looked at him.
At the man who had been managing variables quietly for twenty days.
"You've been planning this," Hiruzen said.
"I've been watching the window," Bai Yan said. "Today is the window."
Hiruzen was quiet for a moment.
"...Alright," he said. "But I want a communication channel maintained the entire transit."
"Yes."
"And if anything changes on the Kaguya resonance while you're in transit---"
"I'll know before it reaches critical," Bai Yan said.
"How?"
"The Observer's Anchor."
Hiruzen looked at him.
"What exactly can you see with that thing?"
Bai Yan thought about the clear image from this morning.
The first truly clear forward vision he'd had since the scroll appeared.
"Enough," he said. "To know today is right."
Hiruzen held his gaze.
He thought about trusting people.
About the letter from the Moon Temple.
About Kakashi's translation.
About a young man in an ancient chamber maintaining something alone for twenty years.
About an anchor who said obviously when asked if he'd show up.
"Go," Hiruzen said.
Konoha --- Eastern Gate
It was eight in the morning when they gathered.
Naruto.
Kakashi.
Bai Yan.
The Azure Dragon was not yet visible.
Bai Yan would summon it outside the walls.
Naruto was looking at the gate.
At the wood grain.
He stood there for a moment.
He thought about his father standing at a street corner counting people.
He thought about what his father had held in his mind when the seal activated.
The gate.
The specific one.
The way the wood grain ran.
He ran his eyes over it now.
He wanted to know it the way his father had known it.
He counted the grain lines from the bottom.
He noted the place where the wood was darker.
Old repair work.
Sometime in the last thirty years.
He noted the way the light hit the upper hinge.
He held it.
"Ready?" Bai Yan said.
Naruto looked at the gate for one more second.
Yes, he thought, to the gate, to his father's memory in it, to whatever version of this moment had lived in Minato's mind at the end.
I see it too.
"Yeah," he said.
He stepped through.
Pure Land
Minato had been watching.
He'd seen Naruto stand at the gate.
He'd seen him count the grain lines.
He sat very still for a long moment.
Kushina had her hand over her mouth.
"He knew," she said. "He knew about the gate. Jiraiya told him."
"Yes," Minato said.
"He was memorizing it the way you did."
"Yes."
"So he'd have it---"
"Yes."
She pressed against his side.
He put his arm around her.
They watched Naruto step through the Eastern Gate of Konoha into the morning beyond it.
The weight of what it holds being known to the holder.
He understood.
He'd always understood.
He'd understood it at twenty-four, holding a newborn son and knowing exactly what he was holding and why it was worth everything.
And now the son had memorized the gate.
Had made it his own.
Was walking through it toward the moon.
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: ...]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: Kushina.]
[Uzumaki Kushina: I know.]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: He's going to be fine.]
[Uzumaki Kushina: I know.]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: He's going to be extraordinary.]
[Uzumaki Kushina: I know THAT too.]
[Uzumaki Kushina: I just---]
[Uzumaki Kushina: He stood at the gate, Minato.]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: I saw.]
[Uzumaki Kushina: He stood at YOUR gate.]
[Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze: ...I know.]
In the Reaper's Belly, they held on to each other.
The Partial Barrier Release scroll was in Minato's sleeve.
He hadn't decided when to use it yet.
But he was getting closer to knowing.
Konoha --- Outskirts
Bai Yan formed the seal.
Spoke a name.
The Azure Dragon came with wind.
Not the quiet arrival of the Black Tortoise.
Not the patience of the ancient defensive beast.
The Dragon came like the sky was glad to have it.
Blue.
Enormous.
Moving with the specific ease of something that had been everywhere and was comfortable arriving anywhere.
It settled.
Looked at Bai Yan with eyes that held the color of deep water and considerable amusement.
You finally called, it said.
"I needed to wait until it was right," Bai Yan said.
It was right several days ago.
"I needed to be sure."
You were sure four days ago.
"I needed Naruto to be sure."
The Dragon looked at Naruto.
At the twelve-year-old standing next to Kakashi with the token in his pocket and eighteen days of bird censuses in his body and the Eastern Gate memorized behind his eyes.
...Yes, it said. Now is right.
Naruto stared up at it.
He'd seen the Black Tortoise two weeks ago from a tree.
That had been enormous.
This was different.
The Dragon took up the sky.
"Hi," Naruto said.
The Dragon regarded him.
Hello, anchor, it said.
"You can call me Naruto."
I know your name.
"Oh." He thought about this. "Then why---"
Because what you are is part of what you're called. A pause that felt amused. Hello, Naruto.
"Hi," Naruto said again.
He looked at Bai Yan.
"Is it always like this?" he said.
"Slightly," Bai Yan said.
He formed the seals for the transit.
The Dragon extended itself.
Naruto climbed up.
Kakashi behind him.
Bai Yan last.
The Dragon rose.
Konoha got smaller below them.
The gate was still visible for a long time.
Naruto watched it until it wasn't.
He looked up.
At the Moon.
Getting larger.
Slowly.
Then faster.
He held the token.
Felt the warmth.
He thought about the ramen shop.
He thought about what he was going toward.
He thought about a man in a Moon Temple who had maintained something alone for twenty years and written I want to meet the anchor in plain common script.
He was going to meet him.
He was going to be himself when he did.
That was enough.
That had always been enough.
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