The Broken Spiral loomed before them like a wound carved into the earth itself.
From a distance, it resembled the remnants of an enormous storm, a colossal vortex of shattered stone and twisted metal spinning eternally, even though no winds stirred it. Reality inside the Spiral shimmered, fractured like a cracked mirror. Gravity shifted erratically. Colors bled across the sky. Sounds echoed from places that no longer existed.
Naruto stared at the entrance — a yawning crevice lined with jagged remnants of ancient jutsu barriers. They sparked weakly against the broken air, their seals corroded beyond recognition.
Kai knelt beside a patch of ground, running her fingers lightly over the surface. Dust lifted into the air — and then reversed, sinking back into the earth as if time itself refused to move properly here.
She rose, her mouth grim.
"This place... it remembers too much."
Naruto swallowed.
The system inside him vibrated uneasily, issuing warnings.
[Warning: Dimensional Stability: Low]
[Warning: Chrono-Spatial Drift: High]
[Caution advised during traversal.]
"You sure we have to go through this?" Naruto asked.
Kai nodded.
"The vault's in the center. No other way."
Naruto exhaled slowly.
Alright.
He adjusted the strap across his chest, double-checked the fragment pouch, and tightened the bindings on his gloves. No matter what the Spiral threw at them, they had to keep moving. Pausing, doubting — it would swallow them whole.
Side by side, they stepped into the Spiral.
Instantly, the world twisted.
The ground beneath Naruto's feet folded like paper, and for a heart-stopping moment, he was falling sideways, then upward, then downward again. His vision split into two, then three, then one again. A high-pitched ringing filled his ears, drowning out everything else.
Kai moved without hesitation, her steps precise.
Naruto gritted his teeth and followed, trusting her instincts.
Reality bent around them like a living thing.
Walls formed and collapsed in an instant. Streets materialized underfoot and crumbled a heartbeat later. Specters of the past flickered in and out of existence — ghostly figures frozen mid-battle, kunai locked in endless trajectories, screams caught in loops.
A phantom kunoichi with burning eyes lunged at Naruto.
He ducked instinctively, but she passed through him like mist, leaving only a lingering sense of sorrow behind.
Kai pulled him forward.
"Ignore them," she said tersely. "Memories. Echoes. They're not real."
Naruto nodded tightly, though his fists clenched at his sides. Every instinct screamed at him to fight, to defend — but swinging at shadows would only trap him here forever.
They pressed deeper into the Spiral.
Hours — or minutes, it was impossible to tell — passed.
At one point, Naruto saw a twisted version of Konoha sprawled before him — buildings tilted at impossible angles, the Hokage Monument cracked and weeping black ichor. Children with hollow eyes played in broken streets.
He looked away.
Focus.
Finally, they reached the Heartline rupture.
It was a massive crater, pulsing with sickly blue light. Giant, broken chakra conduits jutted out from the edges like ribs from a carcass. In the center, atop a floating island of debris, sat a structure — the vault.
It shimmered faintly, protected by layers of shifting seals.
Naruto's system flickered with new data.
[Target identified: Vault of Echoes]
[Security Protocols: Active]
[Hostile Presence Detected.]
Naruto tensed.
Hostile?
Before he could react, the ground before them cracked open.
A figure rose from the depths — no, it crawled free, dragging itself into existence with unnatural jerks and spasms. It was clad in shattered ANBU armor, its mask fused into its flesh. One arm was a mass of writhing black tendrils. Its chakra signature was twisted, wrong, like a symphony played backward.
Kai's face hardened.
"A Remnant."
Naruto had heard whispers back in the Coreless enclave. Remnants — shinobi caught mid-transformation during the Cataclysm, neither human nor machine, their minds trapped in endless feedback loops of rage and sorrow.
The Remnant screeched, the sound fracturing the very air.
It launched itself at them.
Naruto moved first, sidestepping the initial strike and countering with a system-augmented punch. His fist connected with the Remnant's torso — but it was like striking solid steel. The creature barely flinched.
Kai came in from the side, her blade flashing.
The Remnant caught it with its tendrils, yanking her off balance.
Naruto reacted instantly, activating a system ability.
[Skill trigger: Disrupt Pulse Lv. 2]
[Effect: Temporary paralysis of organic-technological hybrids.]
A shockwave rippled from his palm, striking the Remnant.
It convulsed violently, releasing Kai.
She landed smoothly, immediately repositioning.
They didn't need words.
They struck together.
Naruto distracted, feinting and weaving, while Kai went for precision strikes — severing tendrils, carving into vulnerable joints. The Remnant adapted quickly, its movements growing more erratic and vicious.
Naruto knew they couldn't drag this fight out.
The longer they stayed, the more the Spiral would warp reality against them.
He spotted the core — a pulsing black orb embedded in the Remnant's chest, barely visible through the tangled mass of tendrils.
"Center!" he shouted.
Kai understood instantly.
Naruto created an opening, baiting the Remnant into overextending with a reckless lunge.
Kai surged forward, her blade a blur of silver.
With a single, devastating strike, she pierced the core.
The Remnant froze.
Then shattered into a thousand fragments of darkness, dissolving into the Spiral's shifting winds.
Breathing hard, Naruto approached the now-exposed vault.
The seals protecting it flared as he neared, reacting to his chakra signature. Ancient kanji spiraled across its surface.
[System link established...]
[Access Protocol: Fragment Resonance Required.]
Naruto pulled out the fragments they had collected.
One by one, he pressed them against the vault's surface.
Each one sank into the structure, sending ripples of energy through the air.
Finally, the vault shuddered — and opened.
Inside was a trove of memory cores, crystalized fragments of chakra networks, ancient scrolls encoded with lost jutsu systems. Knowledge. Power. Pieces of the world before it shattered.
Naruto stepped inside, awe washing over him.
Kai followed, her expression unreadable.
They had done it.
The first major step toward restoring the Heartline. Toward breaking the Throne's dominion over the broken world.
Naruto's system chimed softly.
[New Mission Acquired: Reconstruct the First Link.]
[Primary Objective: Deliver recovered cores to Heartforge Station.]
[Warning: Throne Executors have been alerted to breach.]
Naruto stiffened.
"Executors," he said grimly.
Kai nodded.
"They'll come fast. Hard."
Naruto glanced at the spiraling storm outside.
Then back at the trove within his grasp.
They had what they needed.
Now they had to survive long enough to use it.
He clenched his fists.
No running.
No hiding.
The Spiral had not broken him.
The Throne would not either.
Not anymore.