The world broke.
The singularity Kawaki unleashed expanded outward like a devouring maw, warping the very laws of physics around it. Sand, stone, and even light twisted and bent, sucked toward the blackened core that pulsed with corrupted chakra.
Naruto launched himself forward, racing against the pull. Every step felt like running through a collapsing star, the gravity threatening to tear him apart. He funneled his chakra into his legs, reinforcing them beyond natural limits.
Above him, Kai and the remaining strike team fought to stabilize the battlefield. Rune pylons embedded in the ground activated, emitting nullifying pulses that slowed the spread of the singularity's edge. Even so, the desert around them had already transformed into a howling wasteland of broken space.
Naruto's mind sharpened to a singular focus — reach Kawaki before the distortion consumed them all.
Kawaki stood at the eye of the storm, the symbols carved into his body glowing with searing crimson light. His right arm had mutated further, now resembling a living weapon fused with bone and machine, dripping strands of quantum filth into the air.
Naruto burst through the last barrier of force fields surrounding the core.
Kawaki turned, a sneer twisting his features.
"You're still trying," he growled. "Still fighting against the inevitable. Why can't you understand?"
Naruto didn't respond with words. Words were meaningless here.
He unleashed a barrage of forged kunai, each one aimed at the stabilizer nodes Kawaki had unwittingly exposed in his armor. The kunai exploded in bursts of chakra disruption, sending arcs of unstable energy dancing across Kawaki's form.
Kawaki staggered, but only for a heartbeat.
He roared, hurling a tidal wave of warped chakra toward Naruto.
Naruto thrust his palm forward, summoning a shield woven from the Forge threads embedded in his core. The two forces collided, shockwaves ripping trenches into the ground, blasting dunes miles away into vapor.
Kai's voice crackled over the comms.
"Naruto! Binding sequence ready! We need five seconds of exposure!"
Five seconds might as well have been an eternity at this level of combat.
Naruto gritted his teeth and moved, cutting through the battlefield like a silver comet. He blurred around Kawaki, creating afterimages that lashed out with razor strikes, each designed not to kill, but to restrict movement.
Kawaki reacted with feral instinct, demolishing afterimages with swipes of his corrupted arm, unleashing pulses of destructive energy in every direction.
Naruto danced through the chaos, closing in.
One step.
Another.
Kawaki overextended with a devastating slash.
Naruto slipped under it, driving a Forge spike into Kawaki's side.
The spike detonated, unraveling a segment of Kawaki's corrupted armor.
Kai didn't hesitate.
From her position on the ridge, she triggered the binding sequence. Threads of energy erupted from the rune pylons, converging on Kawaki like a web woven from pure law.
The bindings slammed into him, forcing his body into a suspended stasis.
For a heartbeat, everything was still.
Naruto stood before him, breathing heavily, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"You were my brother," Naruto said, voice low.
Kawaki stared back, something human flickering in his gaze. Pain. Fury. Maybe even guilt.
"You were supposed to save us," Kawaki rasped.
Naruto shook his head.
"No," he said. "We were supposed to save each other."
The bindings began to fail, fractures running through them as Kawaki's corrupted power rebelled against their grip.
Naruto acted before it was too late.
He slammed his palm against Kawaki's chest.
Forge energy flooded from him, searing through the sigils and corrupted flesh, attacking the Throne's influence directly. It wasn't a clean separation — the Throne had rooted itself deep within Kawaki's soul.
Pain exploded through both of them.
Naruto screamed, his body burning from the inside out as he fought to sever the Throne's hold.
Kawaki screamed too, his form convulsing under the onslaught.
The singularity collapsed inward.
The battlefield imploded into a point of blinding light.
And then — silence.
When Naruto opened his eyes, he was lying on cracked ground. The desert was gone. The sun overhead was dim, shrouded by drifting veils of black ash.
He pushed himself up, muscles trembling.
Kai knelt nearby, bloodied but alive. The few surviving operatives were scattered around, tending to wounds and scanning the perimeter.
At the center of a shallow crater, Kawaki lay unconscious.
The corrupted arm was gone, reduced to jagged remnants. The sigils carved into his body had faded, leaving only scars.
Naruto stumbled to his feet and approached.
For a moment, he just stood there, looking down at the boy he once called family.
Could Kawaki be saved?
Naruto didn't know.
But he had made a choice.
He would carry the burden — not for forgiveness, not for redemption, but because someone had to break the cycle of abandonment.
Kai stepped up beside him.
"You think he'll wake up the same?" she asked, voice rough.
Naruto shook his head.
"No one walks away from the Throne unchanged."
He turned his gaze northward, toward the horizon where fractures in reality still bled light into the sky.
The war wasn't over.
This was only the beginning.
The Throne would not sit idle.
It had seen Naruto now — had felt his defiance.
And it would respond.
Naruto clenched his fists.
Let it come.
He was ready to burn it all down if that's what it took to reclaim their world.
And he wasn't alone.
Not anymore.
As the wind stirred the ash around them, carrying with it the broken dreams of a thousand lost worlds, Naruto moved forward.
One step closer to the end.
One step closer to the Recode.