Mission to save the world

      April 3, 2017 2:40 pm.       “What… What happened? Why is it so dark?” these were the first thoughts that came to my mind when I woke up. I struggled to catch my breath, but hot, carbon monoxide air immediately hit my lungs. I started coughing and screaming for help, but my voice was weak and drowned out by the noise around me. I tried to move but realized that I couldn’t feel anything below my neck. I tried to catch my breath, but with each passing second, I felt being falling deep asleep. I could hear the incessant humming in my head, but it didn’t bother me, and my heavy eyelids slowly closed. Am I… am I dying?       “Call an ambulance! Someone, call for an ambulance!” came a desperate male voice through the noise, and then there were heartbreaking screams. No, I’m not going to die… It cannot be this way. I have my whole life ahead of me. There’s so much I haven’t done yet…

***

The ground. Cold. I pulled my leaden eyelids open and tried to focus. The smell of damp land and rot suddenly hit my nose, and I wrinkled my nose. The stench was so vile that I began to breathe through my mouth, only to smell less, because this “aroma” wasn’t of rotten fruit or vegetables. It was the stench of putrefying meat. I couldn’t confuse it with anything else. My eyes were still blurry, but I tried to get up, eager to get away from the stench. But my frozen limbs refused to obey, and I kept shivering from the cold. It was unusually hard to control my body, as if I had been in a coma for five years and only woke up today. Suddenly an important thought struck me: “I think, therefore I am!” But I didn’t even have time to rejoice. When I stood up and looked around, the thought took on a completely different coloring. I gulped down a lump of fear and stared into the empty, half-dark corridor, which seemed endless, and was so long that in the distance everything merged into a dark, mysterious fog. I turned around, looking back, and found the same thing. As I stared into the distance, it was as if I were looking into an unknown infinity that made my chest tighten in excitement.       “Oh my god,” I exhaled nervously and took a few steps backward, my feet were tangled up, and I fell. “What am I doing here? Where the hell am I?” I exclaimed, but stopped talking frightened. My heart was pounding frantically in my chest, and I licked my dry lips and began to recall the events of the day. It started trivially and without any foreboding: I got up at five in the morning, like a sleepy fly, and the first thing I did was to sit down to do my homework. I hadn’t done it as I had gotten off the evening shift at McDonald’s the night before. So I was working late. Even though I was sixteen, I wanted to earn my own money, so I was willing to sacrifice sleep for my first money. After doing my chemistry homework, I went to medical school and sat through two classes like a zombie. Then I went to gym class. After buying a mug with a picture of Naruto on it as a gift, I went to my best friend’s birthday party. Knowing how many Naruto statues and posters he had, I assumed he’d like the mug, especially with his favorite character on it. The last thing I remembered was a crowd of people on the subway, a crowded rush-hour train, and a suspicious man in a red jacket and blue hat standing three meters away from me, looking around frantically. He smelled so strong that I wanted to move away, but I decided not to as it was only one stop away. I guess that was my fatal mistake because when the train was approaching the station, there was an explosion. I didn’t immediately understand what had happened, whether it was the trains colliding or the bomb exploding, but now, remembering it, I realized that I should have stayed away from that man.       “It’s so cold,” I thought as I looked down the corridor. It was neither narrow, but spacious, about two meters wide. The walls were white, cracked bricks covered in some strange dark slime and black lianas. Instead of a floor, the ground was trampled earth, cold as if it were winter, and the ceiling was just painted white and raised only one question: how could there be electricity? After all, there were wires with the most ordinary incandescent bulbs stretching from above, which periodically crackled, stopped shining, and then started again.       “Where is that foul smell of rot coming from? There’s nothing in my visual range.” Exhaling steam from my mouth, I started groping my pockets for my smartphone. But there were no keys, no passport, no phone.       “Damn it!” I clenched my teeth, heading for the front. My whole body was shivering from the cold, down to my jaw. I didn’t know where to go, but standing still would be the worst thing I could do. The last thing in the world I wanted to believe was that I was dead and went to Hell. I’d never sinned, never done anything wrong. I studied hard. I helped my family. I didn’t betray my friends. Anyway, I’m an atheist and I’ve believed all my life that Heaven and Hell don’t exist. I thought they were fairy tales that people invented to give hope when there was nothing to hope for.       “I’m still alive. I must be in a coma, and it’s all the ravings of a sick brain, yes, just hallucinations…” I reassured myself after a few hours of wandering. “Maybe it’s the astral or I’m dreaming?” I stopped and looked at my hands, and I could see them distinctly. “No… this isn’t a dream.” When I saw a corner in the distance, I decided to take it. Maybe there would be a way out. When I got closer and looked round the corner, I was petrified. Bound by an overwhelming fear, I stared at the corridor full of bones. Human bones. Covering my mouth with my hand, I took a few steps back and pressed myself into the wall. Some skeletons still had bits of flesh on them, and some skulls had hair and teeth. Some bones were nibbled on as if they had been eaten. After a few seconds of panic, I sprinted forward. I wanted to scream in fear, to yell, to call for help, but I restrained myself.       “Who were those people? Who ate them? Why? Where am I?” my mind was buzzing like a swarm of bees. “Maybe I was kidnapped by a maniac. Like in “Saw”?” I sprinted with all my might. There were crossroads on the periphery, but I was afraid to run into them. What if there were bones there, too? After a while, I realized that even though I was moving forward, I was going in circles. After several hours of running, I stopped at the same corridor littered with bones. The dead were lying in the same positions, in the same place where they had been the last time. And the smell of rot emanating from them was just as nauseating. My hands began to shake, and I felt a lump in my throat. I wanted to go home more than ever, to buy sweets, wrap myself in a warm blanke, and watch anime. I felt like I was in a bad dream, like a never-ending nightmare. My heart beat frantically in my chest, and I ran on, hoping to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And the longer I ran down that endless corridor, the more I wanted to cry. No matter how many times I ran, no matter where I turned, always… I always came back to this corridor of skeletons. It was as if everything around me was telling me, “Soon you’ll be these bones too.” I looked for a way out, but it was nowhere to be found. It was like an endless, confusing labyrinth in which I had been trapped for all eternity. A bitterness of resentment filled my soul. I bit my lip and felt the tears roll down my cheeks. I couldn’t understand why or where I’d done it, and it only made it worse. I couldn’t help myself and stopped, crying bitterly. Leaning against the wall, I breathed often and sobbed. My brain refused to accept that this was the end. That there was no way out of here at all.       “Stop it!” — I slammed my fist against the wall and wiped my wet cheeks with my sleeve. I tried to say to myself all the phrases that Naruto used to say in the anime because he taught me to never give up and to believe in the best under any circumstances. “I can do it, I’ll find it, I’ll make it! If I give up now, I’m not getting out. My loved ones are probably already looking for me, I just need to hold on, find a source of food and water, and look for warm clothes”. I got up and was about to go on my way, but suddenly I heard a gloating laugh. Something in my soul squished sharply, and I shuddered and ducked down. I stood still for a minute, looking around, and I began to think that I had imagined it, but then I heard it again. It was someone’s quiet, barely audible, hoarse laughter. Inhuman. I held my breath, but my heart was pounding so frantically as if it wanted to give me away on purpose. Looking off into the distance, I noticed it was getting darker. Only after a few seconds did I realize that the lights had started to turn off in sequence, and this darkness was heading straight for me. Despite my trembling knees, I rushed forward to where the light was. On the way, I turned at the first intersection, hoping that the lights wouldn’t be out, but as I ran parallel to all those endless corridors, I saw that the lights were going out in all of them. Making sure there was no hint of an exit I, turning again, ran from the darkness. I ran as if I had believed all my life that light was safe. But I was late. The darkness was faster and caught up with me in a few seconds, turning out the lights a hundred meters ahead. I fell to my knees and breathed deeply, not out of breath, but out of panic. I stared hopelessly ahead, watching the light grow smaller and smaller, and then suddenly I heard a heartbreaking scream. It sounded like it was behind me and somewhere to the side, in a parallel corridor. And then again, but from the other side. Someone was screaming, so painfully and heartbreakingly, as if they were being torn apart. I could feel it getting colder by the second, and the smell of rot filled the space. There were some terrible sounds behind me, and I clutched some earth in my hands, despite the darkness, and rushed forward. I wanted to live. More than anything, I wanted to escape, to get out of here and finally see the sun. Biting my lip painfully, I ran as fast as I could, repeating in my mind every second like a mantra: “I’ll be saved, I’ll get out of here.” But all my dreams were shattered in an instant when I suddenly felt something pick me up, lift me off the ground, and throw me somewhere. I hit something hard and fell, scratching my face. My head began to spin, and my chest ached violently. I tried to get up as fast as I could to get away, but as soon as I’d run a few meters, I was picked up again by something disgustingly slippery and slammed into the wall until my bones crunched. I didn’t see who it was. I only heard the devil’s laughter and felt the icy breath, as if death itself were breathing down my neck. After a few attempts to escape, I realized I was just being played with. Some creature throws me into the wall, watches me try to escape, and does it again. For fun. Like cats playing with mice.       “Stop it!” I snapped my voice in frustration, sliding down the wall again. But all I got was a nasty laugh and a devilish whisper in an unknown language that echoed throughout the room. I clenched my jaw in pain and tried to get up again. But this time, too, I was struck in the back, and I felt a sharp pain in my heart. My knees buckled, and I involuntarily grabbed my chest and felt a clawed, inhuman hand sticking out of my rib cage. I didn’t remember what happened next. Time seemed to stretch for centuries and shrink into an instant. I was plunged into darkness and emptiness, and that darkness lasted as long as the world had existed. There was something, but it was beyond my comprehension. The only thing I could say for sure was that I didn’t give up until the last second. My whole gut was focused on one thing: seeing the sun again someday.       Inhale. Muffled exhalation. So warm.       “Am I breathing?”        I move slightly and squeeze my palm a little, feeling weak, as if I’d just woken up. Slowly, without opening my eyes, I begin to become aware of my body. I’m lying on my back, in something warm and wet. I think it’s water. It’s heated to the point where it can’t be felt. There’s silence, no voices, no shouting. And so calm, so enchantingly serene, as if it were a lost paradise. Memories of the past events surfaced in my mind so sharply, as if I had been doused with ice-cold water. But somehow there was no response in my soul: there was no fear, no excitement, no pain. All the senses had faded away as if someone had switched them off. I assumed a sitting position and opened my eyelids. The bright light immediately hit my eyes, and I squeezed shut.       “I wanted to see the sun so badly, why doesn’t it make me happy?” flashed through my mind. Opening my eyes a second time, I felt no more pain. I had no desire to look around or get up at all, but logic told me to follow it. As I looked around, I realized that I was in an unusually bright and beautiful space. It was like a starry sky, but not dark, but bright: an endless blue world with bright lights and floating blue clouds. And unlike that dungeon, it was warm, as if I were in the hot July sun. Looking at the floor, I found that there was water about ten centimeters deep everywhere, and the floor itself was like glass, with the same infinity of stars underneath. This view must be mesmerizing, except that as I gazed into it, I felt nothing.       “I love stars so much, don’t I? This would get me excited,” my thoughts ran through my mind. I filled my palms with warm water and then poured it out, noticing that my hands weren’t getting wet from it. I even felt like it was glowing. Maybe it wasn’t water at all. It was worth a walk, to see if this was their space, too, only more beautiful. As I stood up and looked back to make sure I was safe, I realized that wandering around the room looking for a way out was off for the next half hour. I had a more important and, in a way, more interesting task at hand: figuring out what was going on with my brain while Rikudo-sennin was hovering in a cloud of smoke in front of me in a meditation pose.       “I’ve lost my mind.” A pale-skinned man with deep aging wrinkles, a waist-length beard, grey hair, truth-seeking orbs behind his back, and a purple rinnegan in his eyes. He was dressed in a white kimono with black tomoi on his chest and held a black long staff in his hands. I hit my head, of course, but I didn’t think it was that bad. It was Ootsutsuki Hagoromo, practically the God of the Shinobi world, the founder of Ninshuu, and just a wonderful fictional character from the world of Naruto. I closed my eyes, then blinked a few times and closed them again, but he didn’t disappear.       “That was a lot of head-butting,” I said, realizing he was still there.       “Hmm,” he grinned a little. “I see that you can match my appearance with the ghost of the founder of a particular mythological concept”.       “Sage of the Six Paths…”       “Stigmatized as a figment of your world’s imagination. However, it is not the single vein of your familiar abode that feeds the body of the universe. There is another world — one where life goes hand in hand with chakra. It is there that I lay the foundation for prosperity and order”.       “Does he mean that Naruto’s world exists? I don’t understand anything…” I thought.       “Where are we?” I calmly clarified, having trouble understanding his speech. I was beginning to feel like I was hallucinating because I couldn’t explain our dialogue any other way.       “The Refuge of Souls. It’s also called the Pure World. In practical terms, it has a special meaning for you….” he said.       “I’m dead,” I finished for him, hardly making sense, and he nodded. “But what am I doing here? I was there…” I stammered, remembering the dark corridors, the mountain of skeletons, and the frightening whispers of evil.       “You were saved from them,” he began, and I realized he knew about that dungeon. “They call themselves the Devourers.”       “Devourers?”       “The demons that inhabit the endless tangle of paths of lifeless darkness of the universe…”       “Oh,” I sighed tiredly. “I know you lived centuries ago. But can you… er… shorter and a little simpler? I can barely understand you.” The wise man coughed.       “I am an echo of the past, my era instilled manners and notions of conversation — it is ingrained in the core of my personality. But I’ll try to give you the information, taking into account the times in which your consciousness developed…” he sighed absent-mindedly and concentrated again. “Demons live between worlds and intercept dead souls. But don’t worry. You are not destined to be taken back by them”.       “Um…”       “You’re emotionless, but you still don’t believe”.       “I don’t believe it because it’s beyond comprehension. Devourers, different universes, the Pure World, chakra… I thought I would die and that would be the end of it, I didn’t count on anything else,” I explained without strain. “By the way, what makes you think I have no emotions?”       He raised his hand slightly and pointed at my chest. I lowered my head, touching the wound absently, and realized that I hadn’t imagined it then, they… the Devourers… stabbed me in the heart.       “They hadn’t just stabbed your soul; they’d taken what was responsible for emotions and feelings.”       “My heart?” I agreed and hummed. “That’s why I don’t feel moods anymore. If I’d seen you with emotions, my eyes would have popped. What am I supposed to do with this?” I looked at the wound.       “Everything passes with time, and this too will pass,” the sage said slowly.       “By the way, why do we understand each other, aren’t you supposed to communicate in Japanese?”       “It is not the word that is primary. The idea is primary, and that is why there is no concept of language in the Pure World. We communicate with thoughts alone, without distorting them with primitive dialects created by people trying to understand each other,” he explained.       “I see… Since you saved me, can you tell me how to get out of here?” I asked succinctly.       “You don’t owe me your salvation, you came here for a higher purpose and all the conditions are fulfilled for that,” he smiled a little, hinting that I don’t seem to leave here so easily. “And there’s something I need to trust you with.”       “Trust me? What is it?”       “The world I nurture is on the brink of destruction. A world shinobi war is coming, and everything I’ve worked so hard to protect will be destroyed”.       “And Naruto and Sasuke? What about them?” I clarified, assuming it was happening on their time.       “They can’t cope and they always end up dead.”       “What do you mean, “always”?”       “Just like the concept of language… there is no concept of time here,” he circled his arms, showing the space. “In the name of saving my world, I sent various souls there to save the incarnations of my sons, and they, in turn, saved the world. However, the souls failed. I cannot directly intervene in the affairs of the world of the living, my powers are limited to implanting the right soul. If Naruto and Sasuke die, the whole world will perish.”       “You want to send me there as another soul? And give my life in exchange for me saving your children?” I summarized, and the Sage nodded measuredly. “And if I fail, you’ll rewind time and send someone else?”       “That’s right.”       “If Naruto and Sasuke are dying over and over again, then this world is somehow different from what I know.”       “Yes,” he nodded approvingly again, and I realized that if the world was going to be different, then the people in it might be different too.       “I hope the changes aren’t drastic, otherwise it would only get in the way,” I thought.       “Can I refuse?” I asked emotionlessly.       “You can.”       “'I’m being given a life in exchange for all of it being dedicated to one single purpose, saving Naruto and Sasuke, he’s not just offering me a life. Rikudo is offering me a deal that is favorable to him, giving me the right to choose,” I looked around the space, considering my options. “If I refused, wouldn’t I regret it later? What if I get emotional and realize that I’ve lost my exclusive chance to live life to the fullest? Even though the main thing in my life will be the mission, I will still live, and the war there lasted only a few days, not a century.”       “Can I go back to my world, to my loved ones?” I asked, and he shook his head gravely, cutting me off.       After weighing the pros and cons, I answered:       “I agree. But… I have conditions,” I replied seriously, causing Rikudo to raise an eyebrow in surprise. “Didn’t anyone else make a request?”       “Unlike you, the others had emotions.”       “I’m not afraid of rejection. The mission will be difficult to fulfill if I don’t have enough chakra. Therefore, the key request is that I want to enter the body of any Uzumaki. Boy or girl, it doesn’t matter, but preferably a girl,” I said.       Since he can’t intervene in the world, it means I’ll most likely get into an already dead body, or perhaps I’ll come into that world like everyone else, which is to say, I’ll be born. Either way, I can use the chakra.       “I’ll try to arrange it. Anything else?”       “Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I need a language, at least a conversational tone. You’re a God, and I don’t think I’d be happy if I didn’t know their language.”       “I will try to,” he said.       If he doesn’t, it’s no big deal, but if he does, it’ll make my job a lot easier.       “Can you tell me how they die?” I thought I’d ask just in case.       “I can’t be too clear on that. They always die in different ways”.       “Good,” I nodded nonchalantly, and he raised his staff and touched it to my forehead.       “Wait,” I asked, realizing that I had missed something important: “How many souls have you sent out so far? What’s my count?”       Rikudo didn’t answer me. The last thing I saw was a small smile.