Chapter 23: "Escape the Mist"

The Vortex Unbound

The world screamed.

Haku's crystalline coffin sank into the ice, dragging Zabuza's snarl into the abyss. Above, the spacetime vortex yawned wider, its edges fraying into golden threads that lashed the sky like whip cracks. Naruto's scar flickered erratically, the spiral on his cheek dimming as if starved. Sakura gripped his arm, her medical chakra searing his skin in a desperate bid to stabilize him.

"We need to go—now!" Kakashi barked, hauling them toward the bridge's skeletal remains. The vortex roared, devouring snow, light, and sound.

Naruto's hands glowed gold, but the energy sputtered. "I can't—it's not listening—"

"Try harder!" Sakura screamed, her voice swallowed by the storm.

Across the collapsing battlefield, Sasuke stood transfixed. The ice mirror shard in his pocket pulsed, its fractured surface reflecting the vortex's spiral. Zabuza's voice slithered through his mind: "Take it. Claim what he fears to wield."

The Uchiha's Gambit

Sasuke lunged.

Black flames wreathed his body as he vaulted over crumbling ice, his cracked Sharingan fixated on a shard of Haku's mirror drifting toward the vortex. It glowed with residual spacetime chakra—a key, he realized, to everything.

"Sasuke, stop!" Naruto's Rasengan flared weakly, but the vortex's gravity warped its trajectory, slamming it into the ground.

Sasuke's fingers grazed the shard—

—and the vortex twisted.

Reality fractured. Visions erupted: A Konoha where the Uchiha ruled. A wasteland where Naruto wore the Ōtsutsuki's golden eye. A bridge whole, Tazuna laughing as sunlight glinted on unbroken steel.

"Mine," Sasuke hissed, clutching the shard. The ice seared his palm, its edges fusing with his flesh.

The Fragile Bridge

Naruto's scar blazed.

Golden chakra erupted in a desperate wave, enveloping Team 7. The teleportation jutsu stuttered—half-formed—as the vortex's maw closed around them.

For a heartbeat, they hung between worlds:

Kakashi saw Minato, young and bloodied, sealing the Nine-Tails with a spiral tag.

Sakura glimpsed her alternate self, one-armed and defiant, saluting her with a broken sword.

Naruto heard Haku's final whisper: "Save yours."

Then—

—impact.

The Bitter Return

They crashed onto the bridge of their own world, its wooden planks splintered and slick with rain. The vortex snapped shut behind them, leaving only the stench of ozone and the echo of Zabuza's laughter.

"Tazuna…?" Sakura croaked, scanning the ruins. The old builder was gone, his tools abandoned in a pool of melted ice.

Naruto collapsed, his scar now a livid burn. "Did we… save them?"

Kakashi crouched, fingertips brushing strange frost —not of this world— coating the bridge. "Not all of them."

Sasuke stood apart, his back to the group. The ice shard glowed faintly in his pocket, its chill seeping into his ribs.

The Unseen Shadow

Night fell, heavy and silent.

Team 7 sheltered in a half-drowned fishing hut, the air thick with salt and unspoken accusations. Sasuke stared into the dying fire, the shard's whispers threading through his thoughts: "You could have taken it. You could have been god."

Naruto's scar itched. He scratched it, flinching as golden flecks sparked under his nails. "We need to find Tazuna."

"He's dead," Sasuke said flatly. "Or worse."

"Worse?" Sakura's fist slammed the table. "What's worse than dead in your brilliant mind?!"

Kakashi's Sharingan flickered. Beneath the hut, the ocean murmured with unnatural tides.

The Hook Beneath Waves

At dawn, they found the bridge clawed apart—not by time or war, but by teeth. Gigantic, serrated grooves marred the pylons. Tattered nets clung to the wreckage, knotted with strands of hair too white to be human.

Sakura lifted a sodden scroll—Tazuna's bridge blueprint, its margins scrawled with frantic script: "They're in the mist. They're always in the mist."

Naruto's scar pulsed. Somewhere, deep below, the ice shard in Sasuke's pocket hummed.

The Summoning

That night, Sasuke dreamt of Zabuza.

The tyrant stood in a hall of mirrors, Haku's coffin floating behind him. "You left a piece of me in your world, Uchiha," he hissed, pressing a clawed hand to the glass. "Now I'll take yours."

Sasuke woke to the shard vibrating, its glow piercing the dark. Outside, the ocean boiled.

Something gold breached the waves.