Naruto's Resolve

Naruto knelt amid the rubble, cradling Neji's body, already cold, in his arms. The Ten-Tails' wooden spikes still danced through the air. Distant shouts, screams, and explosions reached his ears as though filtered through a thick layer of water, faint and blurred before fading away just as indistinctly.

He lowered his head and looked at the clean patch of skin revealed on Neji's forehead after the Cursed Seal had vanished. Skin that had never seen the light, now glaringly white beneath the glow of smoke and fire.

"Genius..."

Naruto's lips moved, the word squeezed from his throat so hoarsely it was nearly inaudible. Tears still ran down his face, but no longer in the overwhelming flood from before. They had become something quieter, soundless, like water slowly seeping out from somewhere deep, deep within. His pupils—those golden eyes, once blade-sharp in Nine-Tails Mode—were now hollow and dim, like two glass marbles coated in dust.

Countless images flashed through his mind.

The Chunin Exams. The Forest of Death. That boy who had looked at him with the Byakugan and said, "A person's fate is decided from the moment they are born." He had said, "You will definitely lose." Naruto had said, "I'll prove you wrong." Then Neji had lost, and then he had smiled—the first genuine smile Naruto had ever seen from him. Not proud, not mocking, but the smile of someone who had shed all his armor, carrying relief and a trace of bewilderment.

That was the first time.

Then came the mission to retrieve Sasuke, when Neji had nearly died inside the Sound Four's barrier. Then the Fourth Shinobi World War began. Neji had stood at his side, the shadow of the Ten-Tails reflected in his Byakugan, and said, "I will protect Lord Naruto." Naruto had said, "Don't call