What if Naruto chosen by Stormbreaker and become god of thunder

# Chapter 1: The Storm Between Worlds

The air tasted of iron and lightning.

Naruto Uzumaki's lungs burned as he dodged another volley of wooden spears, each one thick as a tree trunk and sharp enough to pierce mountains. Around him, the Fourth Great Ninja War raged like a wounded beast—screams and explosions creating a symphony of chaos that stretched across the devastated landscape. The Ten-Tails' roar shook the very foundations of the earth, sending cracks spider-webbing through reality itself.

"Naruto! On your left!" Sakura's voice cut through the mayhem.

He pivoted, Kurama's chakra flaring around him in a golden shroud. Three Truth-Seeking Balls whistled past where his head had been, obliterating a cliff face with soundless efficiency. No time to think. Only react. Only survive.

"Getting slow there, dead last?" Sasuke materialized beside him, Susanoo's purple flames casting wild shadows across his face. Despite the taunt, concern flickered in those mismatched eyes—Sharingan and Rinnegan spinning in deadly tandem.

"Says the guy who nearly got skewered five minutes ago!" Naruto shot back, forming a Rasengan without conscious thought. The spiraling sphere of chakra had become as natural as breathing, as essential as his heartbeat.

They moved together, two halves of a deadly whole. Sasuke's Amaterasu cleared a path through the white Zetsu army while Naruto's shadow clones formed a perimeter, each one a beacon of hope in the darkness. For a moment—just a moment—it felt like they might actually win this.

Then the sky began to scream.

It started as a whisper, a wrongness in the air that made every shinobi on the battlefield pause. The clouds above twisted into an unnatural spiral, purple lightning crackling between formations that shouldn't exist. The Ten-Tails itself seemed to sense the disturbance, its massive form turning skyward with something almost resembling... fear?

"What the hell is that?" Kiba's voice cracked, Akamaru whimpering beside him.

Kakashi's visible eye widened behind his mask. "Everyone fall back! Now!"

But there was nowhere to run. The spiral expanded, reality tearing like wet paper. Through the rift came a sound that bypassed the ears entirely, resonating in bones and souls—the death cry of space itself. Colors that had no names bled through the gap, and for one terrifying instant, Naruto glimpsed something beyond.

Stars. Infinite stars arranged in patterns that hurt to perceive. Worlds upon worlds, each one a glittering jewel in an endless void. And through it all, something fell.

It descended like a meteor, wreathed in energies that made chakra look like candlelight. The object spun as it fell, and with each rotation, thunder boomed across dimensions. Lightning didn't just strike—it danced, celebrated, proclaimed the arrival of something ancient and terrible and magnificent.

"Is that... a weapon?" Hinata's Byakugan strained to perceive it, veins bulging as she tried to process what she was seeing. "The chakra—no, it's not chakra. It's something else. Something more."

Madara Uchiha stood atop the Ten-Tails' head, his expression shifting from confidence to calculation. "Interesting. The dimensional barriers are weaker than I thought." He raised a hand, purple energy gathering. "Whatever it is, it will serve my purpose."

The falling object suddenly changed trajectory, as if responding to his arrogance. It curved away from Madara's grasping power, accelerating toward the main battlefield. Toward them.

"Move! MOVE!" Naruto shoved Sakura aside as the impact zone became clear. But even as his body reacted, something else stirred within him. A resonance. A calling.

The weapon struck earth with the force of a god's fist.

The shockwave flattened everything within a hundred meters. Ninja techniques meant nothing against the raw physics of the impact. Bodies flew like leaves, the ground liquefied, and at the center of it all, a crater formed that seemed to descend into the heart of the world itself.

When the dust cleared, Naruto found himself at the crater's edge, somehow having moved faster than conscious thought. His body trembled—not with fear, but with recognition. There, at the center of devastation, stood the impossible.

An axe. But calling it just an axe was like calling the sun just a light. The weapon's head gleamed with metal that shifted between silver and gold, depending on the angle. Lightning coursed along its surface in patterns that resembled living veins. The handle appeared to be dark wood, but as Naruto watched, he could see galaxies swirling within the grain. This was Stormbreaker, though he didn't yet know its name.

"Nobody touch it!" Kakashi ordered, but his voice seemed distant, muffled.

Others were already moving. A jonin from the Hidden Stone reached out with chakra strings, only to be repelled by a corona of electricity that left him convulsing. Madara himself descended, his approach cautious but determined.

"A weapon from beyond our world," the Uchiha legend mused. "How fitting that it should arrive just as I reshape reality itself." He extended his hand, Rinnegan pulsing with power.

Stormbreaker rejected him.

The rejection wasn't subtle. Lightning erupted from the weapon in a display that turned night to day. Madara flew backward, his perfect Susanoo manifesting just in time to prevent complete annihilation. Even so, cracks appeared in the ethereal armor, and for the first time in the entire war, Madara Uchiha looked genuinely surprised.

"Impossible," he snarled. "No weapon denies me!"

But Stormbreaker wasn't listening to him. It was searching. Seeking. Judging.

Naruto felt its attention like a physical weight. The weapon's consciousness—because it definitely had one—brushed against his mind with the gentleness of a hurricane. Images flashed through his thoughts: a massive figure with golden hair wielding the axe against impossible odds, rainbow bridges spanning infinite distances, battles that decided the fate of universes.

Worthy.

The word echoed in languages Naruto didn't know but somehow understood. Around him, others tried to approach the weapon. Sasuke's Susanoo hand was repelled. The Five Kage combined their efforts, only to be turned aside like children. Even Obito, wielding the Ten-Tails' power, couldn't get within ten meters.

"Why?" Naruto whispered, taking a step forward. "Why are you calling me?"

Kurama stirred within him, the Nine-Tails' usual rage replaced by something approaching awe. "Kit... that thing. It's older than worlds. Older than me. And it's choosing you."

"But I don't understand—"

Understanding is not required. Only worth.

The weapon pulsed, and suddenly Naruto saw himself reflected in its divine metal. Not as he was, but as he could be. He saw the threads that connected him to everyone he'd ever saved, ever inspired, ever refused to give up on. His determination to never abandon a friend. His dream of peace that he'd carried since childhood. His willingness to shoulder any burden if it meant protecting others.

"Naruto, don't!" Sakura reached for him, but her hand passed through empty air.

He was already moving, drawn by forces beyond physical. Each step felt like crossing dimensions. The closer he got, the more the world changed. Colors became sharper. Sounds gained layers he'd never noticed. The very air thrummed with potential.

Madara attacked then, desperation driving him to prevent what he couldn't claim. Wood Style, Truth-Seeking Balls, every technique in his vast arsenal aimed at stopping the blonde ninja. But the attacks bent around Naruto, deflected by barriers that crackled with otherworldly energy.

"If I cannot have it," Madara roared, "then no one—"

Naruto's hand closed around Stormbreaker's handle.

The universe exhaled.

Power unlike anything he'd ever experienced flooded through every cell. Not just power—knowledge. Purpose. The weight of cosmic responsibility settled on shoulders that had already carried a village's hopes. Lightning didn't just course through him; he became lightning. Thunder didn't accompany him; he was thunder.

His scream of transformation shattered the sound barrier. Golden chakra mixed with divine electricity, creating an aura that forced everyone—friend and foe alike—to shield their eyes. When the light faded, Naruto Uzumaki stood changed.

His whisker marks had become jagged patterns of living lightning. His hair, still wild and blonde, now held streaks of silver that seemed to move like liquid metal. His eyes—those blue eyes that had convinced so many to believe in him—now held depths that reflected storms from other worlds. Stormbreaker rested in his grip as if it had always belonged there.

"Naruto?" Sasuke's voice held a note of uncertainty he'd never shown before.

Naruto turned, and when he smiled, electricity danced between his teeth. "I'm still me, teme. Just... more."

The Ten-Tails roared again, but now it sounded less like a challenge and more like recognition. Even a being of pure destruction could sense the fundamental shift in the battlefield's balance.

Madara's expression cycled through emotions—anger, fear, and finally, a terrible hunger. "So, the game changes. No matter. God or not, you're still just a naive child playing with power you don't understand."

"Maybe," Naruto admitted, hefting Stormbreaker. The weapon hummed with approval, eager to prove itself in this new world. "But I've always been good at learning on the job."

He took a stance that was both utterly familiar and completely alien—his usual combat pose adapted for a weapon that could split mountains and call storms from clear skies. Around him, his allies stared in awe and concern. He was still their Naruto, but he was also something else now. Something more.

The war had just become something beyond any of their comprehension.

Above them, the dimensional rift pulsed like a wound in reality, promising that this was only the beginning. Whatever forces had sent Stormbreaker to their world, whatever cosmic game was being played, Naruto Uzumaki now stood at its center.

The boy who wanted to become Hokage had just become something far greater.

And far more dangerous.

Lightning split the sky in celebration, and the real storm was only just beginning.

# Chapter 2: Divine Awakening

Lightning lived beneath his skin.

Naruto's knees hit the scorched earth, Stormbreaker's weight suddenly impossible despite the weapon's eager hum. Every nerve ending screamed a symphony of transformation—muscles unraveling and reweaving with threads of starlight, bones drinking deep of storms from worlds unknown. His scream shattered the air, but what emerged wasn't entirely human.

It was thunder given voice.

"Naruto!" Sakura lunged forward, medical chakra already glowing green around her hands. She made it three steps before a corona of electricity erupted from his body, sending her flying backward into Sai's hastily drawn ink bird.

"Don't touch him!" Kakashi's Sharingan spun wildly, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. "His chakra network—no, it's something else entirely. It's rewriting itself."

Sasuke stood frozen, his Rinnegan revealing layers of power that shouldn't exist. Where Naruto's familiar golden chakra once flowed, rivers of liquid lightning now carved new pathways through his body. Each pulse sent ripples through reality itself, the air crackling with ozone and possibility.

Inside Naruto's mindscape, chaos reigned supreme.

"What have you done, you idiotic kit?!" Kurama's massive form thrashed against cage bars that suddenly seemed laughably inadequate. Divine electricity coursed through the seal, setting the Nine-Tails' fur standing on end. "This power—it's trying to—GRAAAAHHH!"

The great fox's roar cut short as lightning invaded their shared space. But instead of the burning agony Kurama expected, something else happened. The divine energy didn't consume or dominate—it synchronized. Like two instruments finding unexpected harmony, their energies began to dance.

"Kurama?" Naruto's mental voice wavered, caught between his body's transformation and concern for his partner. "You okay, fuzzy?"

"Okay? OKAY?!" The fox's laughter held an edge of hysteria. "Kit, you just grabbed a weapon older than continents and you're asking if I'M okay? Your body is becoming a living storm!"

As if to emphasize the point, Naruto's physical form convulsed. His whisker marks writhed like living things, electricity carving them into jagged patterns that pulsed with each heartbeat. Silver began threading through his wild blonde hair—not the silver of age, but of lightning frozen mid-strike. When his eyes snapped open, they strobed between familiar blue and the grey-white of storm clouds pregnant with destruction.

"Can't... control it..." The words emerged between gritted teeth that occasionally sparked. His hands clenched, and thunder answered—not from the sky, but from his very bones.

The Allied Shinobi Forces formed a wide circle, torn between awe and terror. Their greatest hope was transforming into something beyond their understanding, and no one knew if what emerged would still be their Naruto.

"We need to do something!" Ino's mental voice reached out through her clan's technique, only to recoil instantly. "I can't—his mind is like touching a thunderstorm! There's so much noise!"

"What kind of noise?" Shikamaru's strategic mind was already working, even as he calculated the troublesome odds of their survival if Naruto lost control completely.

"Voices. Thousands of them. In languages that... that don't exist."

Above them, storm clouds gathered without warning. Not the controlled weather manipulation of skilled ninja, but something primal. The sky itself was responding to Naruto's distress, and each boom of thunder seemed to speak in tongues long forgotten.

Hinata pushed past her cousin's restraining hand. "I have to help him."

"Hinata-sama, no!" Neji's Byakugan saw what she couldn't—or wouldn't. The electrical field around Naruto would fry anyone who got too close. "You'll die before you reach him!"

"Then I'll die trying!" Her quiet voice carried steel that would shame samurai. "I won't watch him suffer alone. Not again."

But before she could take another step, Naruto's transformation hit a new crescendo. He threw his head back, and lightning erupted from his mouth in a pillar that split the clouds above. The sound that accompanied it defied description—part scream, part thunder, part something else that resonated in dimensions human ears weren't meant to perceive.

"Kit, listen to me!" Kurama's voice finally broke through the chaos in their shared mindscape. "Stop fighting it! You're trying to contain an ocean in a teacup!"

"It's too much! I can't—"

"You can't control it by force, you moron! Since when has that ever been your way?" The fox's form began to shift, adapting to the new energy flooding their space. Orange fur gained crackling blue highlights. "You don't dominate power—you make friends with it! That's your whole stupid thing!"

Realization struck harder than any lightning bolt. Naruto's approach shifted from resistance to acceptance, from fighting the storm to dancing with it. The change was immediate and dramatic.

The chaotic eruptions of power suddenly gained rhythm. What had been wild destruction became a pulse, a heartbeat of divine energy that synchronized with his own. His breathing deepened, and with each exhale, controlled wisps of electricity played between his lips.

"That's it," he whispered, and his voice carried harmonics that hadn't been there before. "Not my power to command. Our power to share."

Stormbreaker hummed approval, its weight becoming comfortable in his grip. The weapon wasn't just a tool—it was a partner, like Kurama. And like with the Nine-Tails, the key wasn't domination but cooperation.

The transformation's violence began to subside, replaced by something almost beautiful. Lightning traced patterns across Naruto's skin that looked like circuit boards drawn by gods. His hair settled into its new dual coloring, blonde and silver alternating in patterns that shifted with each movement. When he finally opened his eyes fully, they held depths that reflected storms from a thousand worlds.

But they were still Naruto's eyes. Still held that spark of determination and kindness that had changed so many lives.

"Whoa." He looked down at his hands, watching electricity dance between his fingers with childlike wonder. "This is... this is incredible! I can feel everything! The electricity in everyone's bodies, the static in the air, the storms brewing three countries away—"

His enthusiasm cut short as he noticed everyone's wary distance. Even his closest friends looked at him with a mixture of awe and uncertainty. The isolation hit harder than the transformation's pain.

"Guys?" His voice cracked—a very human sound despite the divine harmonics. "It's still me. I'm still—"

He reached out toward Sakura and froze. Electricity arced from his fingertips, scorching the ground between them. His hand jerked back as if burned.

"I... I can't..." The realization crushed him. He couldn't touch anyone. Couldn't get close without risking their lives. The power that could save them all had just made him untouchable.

Sasuke stepped forward, Susanoo flickering to life around him. "Idiot. You think a little lightning is going to scare us off?"

"Sasuke, don't—"

The Uchiha's Susanoo hand reached out, grasping Naruto's shoulder despite the electrical discharge that made the ethereal construct spark and crack. "You're still the same annoying loudmouth who never gives up. Just with fancier special effects now."

"Teme..." Naruto's eyes misted, though the tears that fell evaporated into steam before they could touch his cheeks.

"The dobe's right," Kiba called out, Akamaru barking agreement. "You're still Naruto! Just, you know, extra crispy version!"

"Kiba!" Ino smacked him upside the head, but she was smiling. "What he means is, we're not afraid of you. We're worried about you."

One by one, the Allied Forces began stepping closer. Not close enough to touch—the electrical field made that impossible for now—but close enough to show support. To remind him he wasn't alone.

"Most troublesome," Shikamaru sighed, but his lazy drawl held warmth. "Now we have to figure out how to incorporate a thunder god into our battle strategies. Do you have any idea how much paperwork this is going to cause?"

Naruto's laugh was bright despite everything, and only a little thunderous. "Sorry for the trouble! But hey, look at the bright side—"

His words cut off as new sensations flooded his awareness. Voices, just as Ino had said, but clearer now. They spoke of realms beyond counting, of battles that shaped reality, of responsibilities that came with divine power. One voice, in particular, stood out—deep and resonant, speaking words that somehow translated directly into his understanding.

"Welcome, young thunder-bearer. The storm awakens, and with it, your true journey begins."

"Did... did anyone else hear that?" Naruto spun around, Stormbreaker raised defensively.

The confusion on his friends' faces was answer enough. Whatever he was hearing, it was for him alone.

Before anyone could respond, a massive explosion rocked the battlefield. Madara had not been idle during Naruto's transformation. The Uchiha legend stood atop a mountain of destruction, his own power amplified by rage and determination.

"Touching reunion," Madara's voice dripped contempt. "But this war doesn't pause for divine awakening. Let's see if your new power is more than just fancy lights, boy."

Naruto's grip tightened on Stormbreaker. The weapon sang eagerly, ready to prove itself. But as he took a step forward, the ground beneath him cracked from the electrical discharge. His newfound speed activated without conscious thought, and suddenly he stood twenty meters from where he'd started, leaving a trail of lightning in his wake.

"Whoa! That was—" He tried to take another step and shot forward again, nearly crashing into a boulder. "Okay, maybe I need some practice with this."

Kurama's laughter rumbled through their bond. "Practice? In the middle of a war? How very like you, kit."

"Got any better ideas?" Naruto shot back mentally, trying to stand still without accidentally calling down lightning.

"Actually, yes. Stop thinking so much. Your body knows what to do—let it. Trust in the storm."

Madara attacked then, wood dragons erupting from the earth with killing intent. But Naruto was already moving. Not with the conscious decision to dodge, but with the instinctive flow of electricity seeking its path. He danced between attacks, Stormbreaker leaving trails of light that lingered in the air like an artist's brushstrokes.

"Impossible," someone whispered. "He's moving faster than the Fourth Hokage ever did."

But Naruto heard the comment with his enhanced senses and felt a pang. His father's legacy, surpassed without intent or desire. The power was incredible, but the cost...

A Rasengan formed in his free hand without hand signs, but this wasn't the familiar blue sphere. Lightning had invaded the technique, transforming it into something new. The rotation created a miniature storm system, complete with tiny lightning bolts that crackled between layers of compressed air.

"Let's see what this can do!" He hurled it at one of Madara's constructs.

The explosion rewrote the definition of destruction. The Rasengan didn't just destroy the wood dragon—it disintegrated it at a molecular level, the lightning seeking out and unmaking every fiber. The shockwave knocked both armies back, and where the attack had struck, glass formed from superheated sand.

"Okay," Naruto breathed, staring at the devastation. "Maybe I should dial it back a little."

"No." Madara's eyes gleamed with something beyond madness. "Show me more. Show me the power that dares to deny me!"

The battle was about to escalate beyond anything the ninja world had ever seen. And Naruto, caught between godhood and humanity, would have to learn control in the crucible of combat.

Thunder rumbled overhead, not from the sky but from the boy who stood between two worlds. The divine awakening was complete.

Now came the hard part—learning to live with it.

# Chapter 3: The Thunder Shadow

Thunder didn't follow Naruto anymore—it struggled to keep up.

The Ten-Tails' spawn swarmed across the battlefield like a plague of nightmares given flesh, each one a writhing mass of hatred and destruction. A hundred ninja died in the span of heartbeats, their jutsu worthless against creatures that regenerated faster than they could be destroyed.

Then the storm arrived.

Naruto materialized in the center of the carnage, Stormbreaker singing its alien war song. The ground beneath him crystallized into glass from the heat of his arrival. His eyes—those storm-touched eyes—surveyed the battlefield with a clarity that transcended human perception. He could see the electrical impulses in every living thing, track the bioelectric fields of enemies hidden underground, feel the very air molecules dancing with potential.

"Right." Lightning played between his teeth as he grinned. "Let's see what this baby can really do."

The first swing of Stormbreaker split reality.

Not metaphorically. The axe carved through space itself, leaving a wound in the air that crackled with rainbow light. Three spawn monsters simply ceased to exist where the blade passed, their matter scattered across dimensions. The afterimage of the swing hung in the air like a scar on the world.

"HOLY SHIT!" Kiba's eloquent assessment echoed across the battlefield.

But Naruto was already moving. Speed was too simple a word for it. He existed in multiple places simultaneously, the lightning-trail of his passage creating a web of destruction. Each position held for exactly as long as it took to strike—a thunderclap of arrival, the wet sound of supernatural flesh parting, the ozone scent of departure.

A spawn creature the size of a building lunged for a squad of Leaf chunin. Naruto raised his free hand, and his voice carried the authority of storms: "Raikiri Rasengan."

The technique that formed defied every law of chakra theory. A Rasengan's rotation accelerated by divine lightning until it approached the speed of light itself. The sphere didn't just spin—it screamed, reality warping around it like cloth caught in a tornado. When he released it, the very air split with a sound like the world's spine breaking.

The spawn didn't just die. It was unmade, every atom scattered to the winds, its existence erased so thoroughly that for a moment, everyone forgot it had ever been there at all.

"Naruto..." Lee watched with tears streaming down his face. "Your youth... it burns like a thousand suns!"

"Focus on the fight, Bushy Brows!" But Naruto's grin took the sting from his words. This was still him—still the loud, protective, impossible ninja who refused to let anyone die on his watch.

Just faster now. Stronger. Divine.

Sasuke observed from atop his Susanoo, something dark and complex churning in his chest. Each display of Naruto's new power felt like a kunai between his ribs. They had always been rivals, always pushed each other to greater heights. But this? This wasn't growth. This was ascension. And Sasuke remained decidedly, frustratingly mortal.

"Show off," he muttered, Amaterasu consuming a wave of smaller spawn. But even his legendary black flames seemed pale compared to the light show Naruto was putting on.

A cluster of Ten-Tails spawn surrounded a medical unit, cutting off all escape. Naruto's awareness snapped to them instantly—Ino was in that group, along with a dozen wounded. Too far for conventional movement. Too many enemies for his allies to clear a path.

So he made his own.

Stormbreaker spun in his grip, and he drove it into the earth with purpose that transcended simple violence. The weapon's edge bit deep, and rainbow light erupted from the point of impact. A bridge of pure energy formed—not chakra, but something older. Something that tasted of distant stars and the spaces between worlds.

"What is that?!" Shikamaru's mind raced, trying to categorize the impossible.

Naruto stepped into the light and vanished. A heartbeat later, he erupted from matching radiance beside the medical unit, already swinging. The spawn had no time to react before divine lightning turned them to ash and memory.

"Bifrost," he said, the word coming unbidden to his lips. Knowledge that wasn't his own whispered of rainbow bridges between realms, of instantaneous travel across infinite distances. "Huh. That's new."

"New?!" Ino shrieked, medical supplies scattered around her. "You just teleported through a rainbow!"

"Yeah! Cool, right?" His boyish enthusiasm clashed wonderfully with the divine power crackling around him. "I wonder what else this thing can—"

Madara's laughter cut across the battlefield like a scythe through wheat. The Uchiha legend hadn't been idle—he'd been studying, analyzing, understanding.

"I see it now," Madara's voice carried dark satisfaction. "That weapon isn't from our world at all. It's a key, boy. A key to doors that should remain closed."

"Don't care!" Naruto shot back, another Bifrost portal carrying him directly into Madara's guard. Their clash sent shockwaves rippling outward, flattening trees and lesser fighters alike. "Whatever doors need opening or closing, I'll handle it! That's what I do!"

But even as he fought, he felt it. Eyes upon him. Not the awed stares of his allies or the hateful glares of enemies. Something else watched from spaces between spaces, drawn by each display of divine might. The sensation crawled across his skin like ice-cold fingers, measuring, evaluating, judging.

Kurama felt it too. "Kit, we're being watched. And not by anything from this dimension."

"Yeah, I noticed." Naruto parried a Truth-Seeking Ball with Stormbreaker's edge, the collision creating a sound like reality hiccupping. "One problem at a time, fuzzy."

The battle raged with renewed intensity. Naruto's presence had shifted the tide, but the enemy adapted quickly. The Ten-Tails itself began to move, its massive form causing earthquakes with each step. Madara coordinated its attacks with surgical precision, forcing Naruto to be everywhere at once.

He obliged.

A dozen Narutos appeared across the battlefield—not shadow clones, but something more. Each one crackled with divine lightning, each one wielded a ghostly echo of Stormbreaker. They moved in perfect synchronization, a storm given multiple bodies, multiple wills, multiple chances to protect.

"Those aren't normal clones," Kakashi observed, his Sharingan struggling to track their movements. "The chakra signature is all wrong."

"Thunder Clones," Naruto corrected, the original touching down near his former teacher. "They're made of solidified lightning. Pretty cool, huh? Though they kinda sting when they pop."

One of the clones demonstrated this by intercepting a bijuu bomb meant for the Allied Forces' main camp. The explosion that resulted painted the sky in colors that shouldn't exist, aurora borealis in fast-forward. When the light faded, the clone was gone but the attack had been completely neutralized.

"Naruto." Sasuke appeared beside him, Susanoo armor cracked and bleeding energy. "We need to talk."

"Little busy here, teme!" Naruto spun Stormbreaker in a wide arc, the motion creating a dome of lightning that vaporized incoming projectiles.

"That's exactly the problem." Sasuke's eyes—both Sharingan and Rinnegan—bore into him with intensity that had nothing to do with combat. "You're not fighting like a ninja anymore. You're fighting like a god."

"So?" Naruto paused, genuinely confused. "If it works—"

"Are you even still human?" The question cut deeper than any blade. "When you look at us, do you see comrades or ants? When you move like that, think like that, fight like that—what's left of Uzumaki Naruto?"

The words hit harder than any attack. Naruto's divine awareness, the cosmic perspective that came with Stormbreaker, suddenly felt like a weight. He could feel every heartbeat on the battlefield, sense the bioelectricity of life and death playing out in real-time. The overview was intoxicating, overwhelming, inhuman.

"I..." He faltered, and in that moment of distraction, a spawn creature struck.

Claws raked across his back, tearing through his jacket but sparking harmlessly off skin that had become living lightning. The creature shrieked as electricity coursed through it, reducing it to atoms. But the damage was done—not physical, but philosophical.

"See?" Sasuke's voice held bitter triumph. "You didn't even notice it approaching. The Naruto I know would have sensed the killing intent, relied on instinct and training. You relied on being invulnerable."

"That's not—"

"We'll finish this later." Sasuke turned away, Susanoo reforming around him. "If there's enough of you left to finish anything."

Naruto watched his rival rejoin the battle, something cold settling in his chest despite the divine fire burning through his veins. Was Sasuke right? Each swing of Stormbreaker felt more natural than breathing, each lightning-fast movement more comfortable than walking. The power sang in his bones, begged to be unleashed fully, to stop holding back and show these mortals what a god could truly do.

"Don't listen to the Uchiha brat," Kurama growled. "You're still you. Just... more."

"Am I?" Naruto looked down at his hands, watching electricity dance between fingers that could shatter mountains. "Or am I becoming something else?"

The question hung unanswered as Madara made his move. The Uchiha had been building toward something during their clash, and now his trap sprang shut. Chains of chakra-suppressing metal erupted from prepared seals, a technique specifically designed to bind bijuu.

They wrapped around Naruto like serpents, and for a moment, everyone held their breath.

Then he flexed, and the chains shattered like spun glass.

"Cute try," Naruto said, but his heart wasn't in the taunt. "But I'm not just a jinchuuriki anymore."

"No," Madara agreed, his grin sharp as kunai. "You're so much more. And that's exactly what I'm counting on."

The Uchiha's hand moved through seals too fast to follow, and suddenly Naruto felt a pull. Not on his body or his chakra, but on Stormbreaker itself. Madara wasn't trying to steal the weapon—he was trying to siphon its power.

"What are you—"

"Did you think I was simply attacking randomly?" Madara laughed as energy began flowing from Stormbreaker to him, divine lightning mixing with his Six Paths power. "Every strike, every clash, I was analyzing. Learning. And now..."

Lightning erupted from Madara's form, but it was wrong. Corrupted. Where Naruto's divine electricity sang of storms and life, Madara's crackled with entropy and ending.

"Now," the Uchiha continued, his form beginning to change, "I'll show you what happens when divine power meets true ambition."

The transformation was horrific. Beautiful. Madara's body adapted to the stolen power with the efficiency of a weapon designed for war. Black lightning traced patterns across his skin that looked like inverse constellations, dark stars in a darker sky.

"No!" Naruto tried to sever the connection, but it was like trying to stop a river with his hands. "That power—you don't understand what you're dealing with!"

"Understanding is for philosophers," Madara retorted, drunk on stolen divinity. "I prefer results."

He moved, and the world blurred. Not with speed—Naruto could track that. But with wrongness, as if Madara was skipping through space like a stone across water. Their collision sent both armies tumbling, the sheer force creating a crater that would be visible from space.

"Impressive," Madara noted, holding Naruto's Stormbreaker at bay with a hand wreathed in corrupted lightning. "But you're holding back. Afraid of what you might become if you truly let go?"

"I'm not—"

"Liar." The word slithered between them like a living thing. "I can feel it through our connection. The power wants to be used. Wants to remake you completely. And you're terrified."

Naruto's response was violent, primal. Stormbreaker sang as he spun it in an arc that opened another Bifrost portal—not for travel, but as a weapon. Rainbow light scythed through the air, reality's edge sharp enough to cut concepts.

Madara dodged, but barely. A line of black blood traced across his cheek where dimension had kissed flesh.

"Better," he approved. "But still not enough. Let me show you what you could be."

The stolen divine power erupted from Madara in a display that painted the night in negative colors. Black lightning reached for the heavens, and the heavens flinched. Storm clouds gathered not to bring rain, but to flee from something that shouldn't exist.

And in that moment of absolute wrongness, Naruto felt them clearly. The watchers from beyond. They had been curious before, intrigued by a mortal wielding divine power.

Now they were afraid.

Because Madara had done something that violated cosmic law. He'd stolen power meant for the worthy and corrupted it with ambition unchecked by wisdom. The universe itself recoiled from the abomination he was becoming.

"Do you feel it?" Madara laughed, mad with power. "The walls between worlds growing thin? Your little light show has been sending out invitations, boy. And something is coming to RSVP."

Naruto's divine awareness expanded involuntarily, and he saw. Shadows between stars. Eyes in the void. Things that had noticed their world only because divine lightning had lit it up like a beacon.

Things that were hungry.

"What have we done?" The whisper escaped before he could stop it.

"We?" Madara's grin was all teeth and malice. "You opened the door, Uzumaki. I'm just making sure it can't be closed."

The real war was about to begin. And Naruto, caught between his fading humanity and rising divinity, would have to decide what he was willing to become to save everyone.

Thunder rumbled overhead, but now it sounded like a countdown.

Or a dinner bell.

# Chapter 4: Echoes of Asgard

The vision struck mid-swing.

One moment, Naruto was carving through another wave of Ten-Tails spawn, Stormbreaker singing its alien battle hymn. The next, he stood in a hall that defied comprehension—walls of gold that breathed, pillars carved from solidified starlight, a ceiling that was simultaneously a meter above and infinite light-years distant.

"What the—"

"Welcome, young bearer, to the Echo of Asgard."

The voice rumbled like continental plates shifting, and Naruto spun to face its source. A figure materialized from golden mist—massive, bearded, with eyes that held the weight of millennia. Not a man, but the memory of one, preserved in divine amber.

"You're..." Naruto's enhanced perception screamed details at him. The barely-contained power, the weathered nobility, the way reality seemed to genuflect in his presence. "Thor?"

"An echo of him." The figure's smile held infinite sadness. "A fragment left in Stormbreaker's heart, awakened by your worthiness. And you, Naruto Uzumaki, have questions."

"I—wait, how do you know my name?"

Thor's echo laughed, a sound like distant thunder over mountains. "The weapon knows you, therefore I know you. Your courage, your compassion, your delightful tendency to befriend your enemies—all recorded in lightning's memory."

Reality flickered. Naruto caught glimpses of the real world—his body still moving, still fighting, operating on pure instinct while his consciousness dwelt in this impossible space. Time moved differently here, each second stretching like taffy.

"Is this really happening?" Naruto reached out to touch a pillar, finding it solid despite its impossibility. "Or am I going crazy?"

"Both. Neither." Thor's echo gestured, and the hall shifted. Windows appeared showing vistas that broke Naruto's brain—a rainbow bridge spanning the void, a tree whose roots touched every reality, battles between beings that made the Ten-Tails look like a house pet. "You stand in a space between thought and thunder, where Stormbreaker's memories live. And we have little time."

"Time for what?"

The echo's expression darkened. Storm clouds gathered in eyes that had seen the birth and death of stars. "To prepare you for what's coming. Tell me, young bearer—do you know why Stormbreaker chose you?"

"Because I'm worthy?" The words came out more question than statement.

"Worthiness." Thor's echo spat the word like a curse. "A simple concept hiding infinite complexity. Yes, you are worthy—but of what? Not just of power. Any fool can swing an axe. You're worthy of the burden."

The hall shifted again, becoming a battlefield. Not the one Naruto knew, but something vaster. He watched Thor—the real Thor—standing against a tide of shadow that devoured light itself. Each swing of Stormbreaker carved reality back into being, but the darkness kept coming. Endless. Hungry. Patient.

"The Void King," Thor's echo narrated. "An entity from before the first star ignited, when existence was just a possibility arguing with entropy. It feeds on realities, young bearer. Dissolves the bonds between atoms, between thoughts, between souls. And it has turned its hunger toward the dimensional cluster containing your world."

Naruto's fists clenched. "So stop it! You're gods, right? That's what gods do!"

"Were gods." The correction carried the weight of epitaph. "This echo is all that remains of Thor in this narrative thread. The Void King's first move is always the same—sever a reality from its protectors. Your world has been cut off from Asgard, from Olympus, from every pantheon that might have aided you."

"But Stormbreaker—"

"Stormbreaker was our contingency." Pride and sorrow warred in the echo's voice. "Forged with metal from the heart of dying stars, cooled in the waters of fate, blessed by powers that no longer have names. It was designed to find champions across realities, to raise up mortals when gods fall. You, Naruto Uzumaki, are not its first bearer in this war. Nor, I fear, will you be its last."

The battlefield dissolved. They stood now in what might have been a classroom, if classrooms were carved from crystallized music and furnished with the dreams of scholars. Other figures materialized—a woman with stars for eyes, a being of pure geometric impossibility, something that might have been a dragon if dragons were made of calculus.

"These are echoes of other bearers," Thor explained. "Each one chosen, each one trained, each one—"

"Dead." The star-eyed woman's voice tinkled like breaking glass. "We all died, young lightning. Buying time, nothing more. The Void King is patient. Eternal. It can afford to lose a thousand battles if it wins the war."

"Then why fight?" Naruto's question rang with frustrated defiance. "If you all failed—"

"Because someone must." The dragon-equation's words were formula given voice. "Each bearer delays the inevitable. Each sacrifice buys other realities time to prepare, to evacuate, to evolve. We are not warriors, young one. We are speed bumps on the road to oblivion."

"Bull!" The word exploded from Naruto with enough force to crack the impossible walls. "I don't care what you say—I'm not fighting to delay anything! I fight to win!"

Silence greeted his declaration. Then, impossibly, Thor's echo smiled.

"And that," the god-memory said softly, "is why Stormbreaker chose you. Not for your power, not even for your worthiness. But for your magnificent stupidity in the face of impossible odds."

The classroom shattered, replaced by memory made manifest. Naruto found himself standing beside Thor—the real Thor, not an echo—in a moment preserved in Stormbreaker's core. They faced the Void King together, and Naruto's enhanced senses finally grasped the true horror of their enemy.

It wasn't a being. It was an absence. A hunger shaped vaguely like thought, existing in the spaces between spaces. Where it touched, existence simply... wasn't. Not destroyed, not changed—simply retroactively never was.

"How do you fight nothing?" Naruto whispered.

"With everything," Thor replied, somehow aware of his presence across time. "The Void King is absence, so we must be presence. It is ending, so we must be beginning. It is despair—"

"So we must be hope." Naruto finished, understanding blooming like lightning in his chest. "That's why it's not about power. It's about what the power represents."

Thor's echo reappeared, approval radiating from his form. "You learn quickly. But knowledge and application are different beasts. The Void King has sent its herald to your world—even now, your friend battles a corruption that should not exist."

Reality flickered. Naruto saw the real world clearly—Madara wreathed in stolen divinity, black lightning carving wounds in existence itself. Each use of the corrupted power made the dimensional barriers thinner, made their reality more visible to hungry eyes in the void.

"I need to stop him!"

"You need to understand him." The star-eyed woman stepped forward, her hand passing through Naruto's chest to touch something deeper than flesh. "The Void King doesn't conquer—it corrupts. It finds the hollow places in hearts and fills them with hunger. Your Madara seeks power to reshape the world. Noble goal, twisted method. The Void King will offer him exactly what he wants."

"And the price?"

"Everything." All the echoes spoke in unison, a chorus of the condemned. "It always costs everything."

The visions began to accelerate. Naruto saw flashes of other worlds, other battles, other bearers. A civilization of pure thought, erased between one idea and the next. A reality where music had substance, silenced forever. Warriors beyond counting, each one mighty, each one certain they would be different.

Each one wrong.

"This is too much," Naruto gasped, divine consciousness struggling to process the scale of destruction. "How can one thing destroy so much?"

"Because it doesn't destroy," Thor's echo corrected. "It uncreates. There's a difference. Destruction leaves ruins, memories, the possibility of rebuilding. The Void King leaves nothing. Not even the memory of what was lost."

"Then how do you remember?"

"Stormbreaker remembers." The weapon pulsed in his grip, warm and alive and defiantly real. "It exists partially outside standard causality, a needle threading between realities. What it witnesses cannot be unwitnessed. What it preserves cannot be unpreserved. You carry the last testament of a trillion souls, young bearer. Their only proof they ever existed at all."

The weight of it crashed down on Naruto like a physical thing. Not just a weapon, but a memorial. Not just power, but responsibility on a scale that made becoming Hokage look like a child's game.

"I..." His voice cracked. "I'm just a ninja. I wanted to protect my village, my friends. This is... this is too big."

"Yes," Thor's echo agreed simply. "It is. Will you carry it anyway?"

And there it was. The question that had been asked of every bearer, in every reality, across every dimension. Not 'can you?' but 'will you?'

Naruto thought of his friends fighting in the real world. Of Hinata's quiet strength, of Sasuke's bitter questions, of everyone who had believed in him when he was just a loud orphan with impossible dreams. He thought of ramen shared and bonds forged and promises to never abandon anyone who needed him.

The scale had changed. The stakes had multiplied beyond comprehension.

But the answer remained the same.

"Yeah," he said, grip tightening on Stormbreaker until divine lightning danced between his fingers. "I'll carry it. All of it. That's my ninja way."

Thor's echo laughed, and for a moment, he seemed almost solid. Almost alive. "Then let me give you a gift, young bearer. Not power—you have enough of that. Knowledge."

He reached out, touching Naruto's forehead with fingers made of memory and storm. Information flooded in—combat techniques from a hundred worlds, ways to channel divine lightning that no mortal mind should comprehend, the true names of things that could unmake themselves if spoken carelessly.

But more than that. He saw how others had fought. How they had loved, laughed, found joy even in the shadow of annihilation. How they had made their last stands mean something, even in defeat.

"The Void King will come," Thor's echo said as he began to fade. "First its heralds, then its armies, then the hunger itself. You have perhaps a cycle of your world's moon before the true assault begins. Prepare them, young bearer. Unite them. And when the darkness comes..."

"I'll light it up," Naruto finished, electricity crackling between his teeth. "Believe it."

The echo smiled as it dissolved. "I think I do."

Reality crashed back like a physical blow. Naruto found himself mid-leap, Stormbreaker descending toward a cluster of spawn. But now he moved with purpose beyond instinct. The axe carved through enemies, yes, but also through space itself, each swing reinforcing the dimensional boundaries Madara was weakening.

"Kit!" Kurama's voice held relief and concern in equal measure. "You've been gone for nearly a minute! Your body was moving on its own!"

"Felt like hours," Naruto muttered, landing in a crouch that cracked the earth. "Kurama, we've got a problem. A big problem. Like, 'makes the Ten-Tails look cute' problem."

He looked across the battlefield to where Madara wreaked havoc with corrupted divinity, and now he could see it clearly. The shadow behind the shadow. The hunger seeping through cracks in reality, using the Uchiha as a doorway.

"First things first," Naruto decided, rising to his full height. Lightning wreathed him like armor, but now it moved with purpose, with technique refined across dimensions. "Let's give Madara what he wants."

"What?!"

"He wants divine power?" Naruto's grin held edges sharp enough to cut fate. "Then let's show him what divine power really means. What it costs. What it carries."

He raised Stormbreaker to the storm-torn sky, and for the first time since grasping the weapon, he truly let go. Not of control—of restraint. Thunder answered not like a servant, but like a long-lost friend coming home.

"Hey, Madara!" His voice carried across dimensions, making reality ring like a struck bell. "You want to reshape the world? Cool! But first, let me show you what you're really inviting in!"

The Uchiha turned, black lightning writhing around him like diseased serpents.

And Naruto showed him.

He opened his divine consciousness fully, letting everyone—friend and foe alike—see what he had seen. The Void King. The consumed realities. The price of power stolen rather than earned.

For one terrible moment, the entire battlefield experienced cosmic truth.

Then the screaming started.

But through it all, Naruto stood firm, Stormbreaker humming its approval. He was still himself—loud, determined, protective. But now he was also a bearer of impossible responsibility, a bridge between mortality and godhood, a speed bump on the road to oblivion who refused to accept that the road had only one destination.

The real war was coming.

Time to teach the void what happened when it threatened his precious people.

# Chapter 5: The Price of Godhood

The ramen turned to ash on his tongue.

Naruto stared at the disintegrating noodles, watching them crumble like ancient parchment between his chopsticks. The rich pork broth he'd dreamed about during the war evaporated before it could touch his lips, leaving only the bitter taste of ozone and impossibility.

"Naruto-kun?" Teuchi's weathered face creased with concern. "Is something wrong with the—"

"No!" The word came out sharp enough to crack the counter. Lightning flickered across Naruto's teeth as he forced a smile that fooled no one. "It's perfect, old man. I'm just... not hungry."

Lies tasted worse than ash.

He pushed the bowl away with hands that could shatter mountains but couldn't hold chopsticks without reducing them to splinters. Three days since the cosmic revelation. Three days since he'd shown everyone the truth of the Void King. Three days of victory that felt like defeat.

The bell above Ichiraku's entrance chimed. Civilian customers. Naruto felt them before he saw them—their bioelectric fields humming like fireflies against his enhanced perception. The woman froze mid-step, her son pressed against her leg, both sets of eyes wide with something between awe and terror.

"M-Mommy," the boy whispered, "is that the Thunder God?"

Thunder God. Not Naruto. Not even Hokage-candidate. Thunder God.

"We should go," the woman breathed, already backing away. "We don't want to disturb—"

"Wait!" Naruto turned too fast. Divine speed. The air cracked, and the woman flinched like he'd struck her. "I mean... the ramen's great today. You should stay."

They fled.

Teuchi's hand settled on the counter—not quite reaching for Naruto, but offering presence. "They'll adjust, boy. Give them time."

"Time for what?" Electricity danced bitter between Naruto's fingers. "To forget I used to be human?"

The old ramen chef's silence spoke volumes.

Outside, Konoha rebuilt itself with desperate efficiency. The war's physical scars were healing—buildings rising from rubble, walls patched with fresh mortar. But other wounds festered unseen. Naruto walked streets he'd run through as a child, and felt the weight of changed gazes.

Children who once begged for stories now hid behind their parents. Shopkeepers who'd finally accepted him now bowed too deep, smiled too wide, reeked of fear-sweat that his enhanced senses couldn't ignore. Even the ANBU shadowing him kept triple their usual distance, as if afraid his divinity might be contagious.

"Troublesome."

Shikamaru materialized from shadow, hands pocketed, expression carved from calculated calm. But Naruto could hear his accelerated heartbeat, see the micro-tensions that betrayed unease.

"That's my line," Naruto tried to joke. It fell flat as old beer.

"Walk with me." Not a request. Shikamaru turned toward the Hokage Monument, and Naruto followed, noting how civilians parted before them like water before a blade.

They climbed in silence broken only by thunder that followed Naruto's footsteps. Each step left glass where stone had been, divine heat transforming matter without conscious thought. By the time they reached the Fourth's head, a trail of crystallized earth marked their passage.

"You haven't slept," Shikamaru observed, settling cross-legged near the stone hair.

"Don't need to." The admission tasted like copper. "Sleep is for bodies that get tired. I don't... I can't get tired anymore."

"What about eating?"

"Everything tastes like ash." Naruto's laugh held lightning's edge. "Turns out divine bodies don't need mortal food. Who knew?"

Shikamaru's eyes—clever, calculating, concerningly kind—studied him. "What else?"

The question hung between them like a blade.

"I can hear your thoughts," Naruto admitted. "Not words, but... impressions. Electrical patterns. Everyone's afraid, Shika. Even you. Even—" His voice cracked like thunder. "Even me."

"Of course we're afraid." Shikamaru's honesty cut clean. "You showed us cosmic horror, then asked us to trust you're still the same knucklehead who paints the monument. That's a big ask."

"I am the same—"

"Are you?" Dark eyes pinned him. "When did you last make a shadow clone?"

Naruto blinked. Concentrated. The familiar hand sign felt alien, and when he pushed chakra—

Lightning erupted. Not a clone, but a localized storm that scorched earth and split sky. Where dozens of shadow clones should have stood, only ozone remained.

"Thought so." Shikamaru's voice held no triumph, only sadness. "Your chakra network's been completely rewritten. You're not using ninja techniques anymore—you're translating them through divine power. That's not the same thing."

"I can still fight! Still protect—"

"Can you?" The question struck like a slap. "Your mere presence changes weather patterns. Your emotional state causes blackouts. Yesterday, you got excited during a strategy meeting and accidentally opened a Bifrost portal to the middle of Wind Country."

Each word a kunai finding its mark.

"That's... that's just control issues. I'll learn—"

"Naruto." Shikamaru's use of his actual name stopped him cold. "When was the last time you felt physical pain?"

The question's simplicity masked its cruelty. Naruto thought back—the war's countless injuries, the transformation's agony, the battles since. Nothing. Not a scratch, not a bruise, not even the satisfying ache of well-used muscles.

"Gods don't feel pain," he whispered.

"And that's the problem." Shikamaru stood, brushing dust from his pants with methodical precision. "Pain keeps us human. Reminds us we're mortal, fallible, connected. Without it..."

He didn't need to finish. Without it, you become something else.

"Naruto-kun!"

The voice shattered his spiral toward despair. Hinata crested the monument's curve, lavender eyes bright with determination that could shame steel. She moved with shinobi grace despite the council meeting clothes that marked her as clan heir.

"Hinata, don't—"

She reached for him.

"NO!"

Lightning exploded outward. Defensive. Instinctive. Lethal.

Shikamaru's shadow technique snapped out, yanking Hinata backward as electricity carved trenches where she'd stood. The air reeked of ozone and almost—almost tragedy.

"I..." Naruto stared at the destruction, at Hinata's wide eyes, at hands that had nearly murdered love itself. "I didn't mean..."

"I know." Her voice held no fear, only infinite patience. "You'd never hurt me intentionally."

"Intentionally doesn't matter if you're dead!" The words ripped from him raw as exposed nerves. "I can't... Hinata, I can't even touch you. What kind of life is that? What kind of future?"

She stepped forward. Shikamaru tensed to intervene again, but her raised hand stopped him.

"The kind we build together." Simple words carrying impossible weight. "You think I care about touching if it means losing you?"

"You should." Self-loathing dripped from every syllable. "You should run. Find someone normal. Someone who can hold your hand without accidentally stopping your heart."

"My heart stopped being mine to give away years ago." She moved closer, each step deliberate despite the electricity crackling warnings. "It belongs to the boy who never gave up. Who befriended enemies and saved villages and carried everyone's dreams on his shoulders."

"That boy's gone." The admission broke something inside him. "I'm just the thing wearing his face."

"Liar."

The word struck harder than any punch. Hinata's eyes—those gentle eyes that had watched him for years—now blazed with fury that could melt permafrost.

"The Naruto I love doesn't give up. Doesn't accept defeat. Doesn't abandon people—especially not himself." She was close enough now that electricity arced between them, her hair standing on end. "So stop feeling sorry for yourself and figure it out."

"How?" Desperation cracked his voice like glass. "How do I figure out being human when humanity's burning out of me?"

"The same way you do everything else." Her smile held sunrise. "With help from people who believe in you."

She reached out again. Slower this time, telegraphing the movement. Naruto jerked back, but she persisted, fingertips approaching his cheek with inevitable patience.

"Hinata, don't—"

Contact.

Lightning coursed between them—not the killing bolt he'd feared, but something else. Hinata gasped, muscles locking as electricity found new pathways. But she didn't pull away. Through their connection, Naruto felt her chakra network adapting, evolving, learning the divine current's rhythm.

"See?" Her voice came out breathless but triumphant. "We'll figure it out. Together."

The moment shattered as killing intent flooded the monument. Naruto spun, Stormbreaker materializing in his grip, to find Madara standing on empty air. The stolen divinity writhed around him like diseased aurora, wrong in ways that made reality itch.

"How touching." Madara's voice carried venom sweet as honey. "The god pretends at mortality while real power slips through his fingers."

"Give it back." Naruto's words weren't request but command, thunder punctuating each syllable. "That power isn't yours."

"Nothing is anyone's." Madara's grin split like fault lines. "That's the beautiful truth the void showed me. Ownership is illusion. There is only hunger and the fed."

He moved.

Not with speed—with inevitability. The corrupted lightning carved space, and suddenly Madara stood behind Hinata, hand raised to strike.

Naruto moved faster.

Stormbreaker's edge met Madara's palm with a sound like reality tearing. The collision sent shockwaves rippling outward, shattering stone and warping air. But Madara didn't retreat. Instead, he pressed forward, corrupted divinity eating at Stormbreaker's light.

"You feel it, don't you?" Madara's whisper carried cosmic cold. "The hunger. It's in you too, now. Every god feeds on something. What will you consume, Thunder God? Love? Hope? The very humanity you claim to protect?"

"Nothing." Naruto's denial rang with desperate certainty. "I won't become that."

"Won't?" Madara laughed, and shadows laughed with him. "Boy, you already have. Look at them—your precious people. They don't see Naruto anymore. They see disaster wrapped in familiar skin. A weapon too dangerous to wield, too powerful to discard."

"That's not—"

"Ask the Hyuuga." Madara's eyes found Hinata with surgical precision. "Ask her if she sees a man or a monument. If she loves you or just the memory of what you were."

"Don't listen to him," Hinata said, but Naruto heard the tremor beneath her strength.

"See? Even now, she reassures the god rather than embracing the man." Madara pressed harder, reality groaning where their powers met. "Because the man is gone. Burned away by divine fire. All that remains is the echo, playing at humanity like a child with dolls."

"SHUT UP!"

The roar came from depths Naruto didn't know he had. Lightning erupted not outward but inward, coursing through channels that shouldn't exist. Stormbreaker blazed brighter, and for one impossible moment, he pushed Madara back.

But the effort cost him. In that moment of absolute fury, Naruto felt the last threads of mortality snap. His body temperature spiked beyond human survival. His chakra network completed its transformation, original pathways sealed forever.

When he breathed, storm winds answered. When his heart beat, thunder echoed.

The change was irreversible.

"There." Madara's satisfaction dripped like poison. "Now you understand. Godhood isn't a gift—it's amputation. And the surgery's already complete."

He vanished between one heartbeat and the next, leaving only the taste of ash and endings. But his words remained, carved into the moment like epitaphs.

Naruto stood frozen, divine power coursing through veins that no longer felt like his own. Around him, his friends stared with eyes that confirmed Madara's cruelty.

They saw the Thunder God.

They mourned Uzumaki Naruto.

"I need..." His voice came out wrong, harmonics that belonged to no human throat. "I need to go."

"Naruto-kun—"

But he was already moving. Bifrost light swallowed him, carrying him away from eyes that held too much pity and not enough recognition. He landed somewhere distant—a mountaintop where only storms gathered, where he could rage without destroying what he loved.

Stormbreaker fell from nerveless fingers as Naruto collapsed to his knees. The weapon hummed concern, but he couldn't hear it over the sound of his own dissolving humanity.

He'd gained the power to save everyone.

The price?

Everything that made him worth saving.

Lightning split the sky, and for the first time since becoming divine, Naruto Uzumaki wept. The tears evaporated before they could fall, turned to steam by skin that burned with stellar fire.

Even grief, it seemed, was now beyond his grasp.

In the distance, storm clouds gathered. But these weren't his—they were darker, hungry, patient. The void had tasted divinity through Madara's theft.

And it wanted more.

# Chapter 6: Alliance of Realms

Reality hiccupped.

Naruto felt it like a punch to the solar plexus—dimensional walls thinning, membranes between worlds growing gossamer-weak. He stood atop the Hokage Monument at midnight, Stormbreaker humming warnings in frequencies only gods could hear. The village slept below, blissfully unaware that their universe was developing cracks.

Then space folded sideways, and he wasn't alone.

"Fascinating." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, carrying the weight of libraries and the spark of curiosity pushed to cosmic extremes. "A mortal wielding Asgardian power in a reality bubble I've never catalogued. The dimensional matrices alone are—oh. Oh my."

A figure materialized from wisps of astral energy—tall, goateed, wearing robes that seemed to be cut from the night sky itself. His eyes held depths that had seen the rise and fall of possibilities, and when they fixed on Naruto, they widened with something between recognition and alarm.

"You're not supposed to exist," Doctor Stephen Strange said, his astral form flickering like a candle in cosmic wind. "This entire dimensional cluster—it's been severed from the standard multiversal framework. How am I even—"

"You're the wizard guy!" Naruto interrupted, pieces clicking together from Stormbreaker's inherited memories. "Doctor Strange! From the place with the... the New York!"

Strange's expression cycled through several stages of disbelief before settling on resigned acceptance. "Yes, the 'wizard guy.' And you're channeling enough divine lightning to power a small galaxy while standing in a reality that's been quarantined from the rest of existence. Typical Tuesday, really."

"Wait, quarantined?" Naruto leaned forward, electricity crackling between his teeth. "By who?"

"Not who. What." Strange's fingers moved in patterns that left glowing sigils hanging in the air. "The entity you call the Void King—though that's like calling a tsunami 'damp.' It's a primordial force from before the concept of 'before.' And it's turned your entire dimensional cluster into a petri dish."

The sigils rearranged themselves into a map that hurt to perceive—realities nested within realities, infinite branches spreading from an impossible tree. But around one cluster of branches, darkness writhed like living thing.

"That's us?" Naruto pointed at the isolated section.

"Was you." Strange's correction carried weight. "Now you're in a bubble of warped space-time, cut off from standard divine intervention. No Asgard. No Olympus. No Celestials. Just you versus entropy incarnate."

"So we're alone."

"Not quite." Another voice rolled across the mountaintop like distant thunder. Golden light split the air, and through it stepped a figure in armor that caught starlight. His eyes—those impossible eyes that saw across nine realms—fixed on Naruto with ancient sorrow. "Heimdall sees all, young thunder-bearer. Even into places that should not be."

"Holy—" Naruto nearly dropped Stormbreaker. "You're—but Strange just said—"

"That gods cannot reach your realm?" Heimdall's smile held bitter irony. "True. I stand at the very edge of possibility, projecting only warning where my sword cannot follow. The Bifrost breaks against your reality's borders like waves against stone."

"But I can use it!" Naruto demonstrated, opening a small portal that tasted of rainbows and cosmic radiation. "See?"

"Because you're inside the quarantine," Strange explained, his form growing more translucent. "And because Stormbreaker exists partially outside standard causality. But these projections—we're burning through dimensional barriers just to reach you. I estimate minutes at most before—"

Reality shrieked. The sound bypassed ears entirely, resonating in souls and marrow. Cracks appeared in the air itself, spreading like spider webs through glass.

"Listen carefully," Heimdall spoke with urgency that could move mountains. "The Void King moves in patterns older than thought. First, isolation—achieved. Second, corruption—already spreading through your Madara. Third, despair—when defenders realize the futility of resistance. Fourth—"

"Feeding." Strange finished, his image fragmenting. "It will consume your reality's energy to fuel its expansion to other clusters. You're not just fighting for your world—you're fighting to prevent a multiversal cascade failure."

"Then tell me how to stop it!" Lightning erupted from Naruto in frustration, scorching air and stone. "You guys are gods and wizards and cosmic whatever—there has to be a way!"

"Unity." Both visitors spoke in unison, their forms now more static than substance. "The Void King divides to conquer. Isolation breeds despair. Only together—"

The connection shattered.

Naruto stood alone again, but Strange's sigils remained, slowly fading but still readable. The map of realities. The isolation of their cluster. The creeping darkness that grew closer with each passing moment.

"Kit." Kurama's voice rumbled from within, tinged with unusual uncertainty. "Those were beings of immense power. If they can barely reach us..."

"Then we need to reach out." Naruto's grip tightened on Stormbreaker, divine certainty flowing through him. "Not to gods or cosmic forces. To people. To anyone who'll stand and fight."

He raised the weapon skyward, pulling on power that made his bones ache with stellar fire. Lightning didn't strike—it erupted, fountaining upward in a pillar visible across nations. But this wasn't destruction. This was communication.

The divine lightning carved patterns in the sky—not words, but meaning itself. A call that transcended language, dimension, understanding. It spoke of danger and defiance, of unity against annihilation, of hands extended across impossible gulfs.

And impossibly, something answered.

"What are you doing?" Sasuke materialized beside him, Rinnegan spinning with alarm. "The entire village—the entire continent can see—"

"Good." Naruto's grin held edges of divine madness. "We need everyone to see. Everyone to know. The war didn't end, Sasuke. It just got bigger."

"You're talking about—"

"Everything." The word carried weight that could crack mountains. "I'm talking about saving everything."

More presences made themselves known. The other Kage arrived through various means—Gaara on a platform of sand, the Raikage in a burst of lightning that seemed pitiful compared to Naruto's display, Mei and Onoki through more conventional transportation. Behind them came others—clan heads, jonin, representatives from every hidden village.

"Uzumaki." The Raikage's voice could grind stone. "What is the meaning of—"

"Shut up and listen." Naruto's divine authority rolled over interruption like thunder over whispers. "All of you. What I'm about to show you makes our petty wars look like children fighting over toys."

He shared the vision. Not gently, as he had during battle, but with the full weight of cosmic truth. The Void King. The consumed realities. Their isolation. The approaching hunger that cared nothing for village loyalty or ancient grudges.

When it ended, several people had fallen to their knees. Others wept. The Tsuchikage looked every one of his considerable years.

"Impossible," someone whispered.

"Yeah? So was peace between villages." Naruto's lightning-touched eyes swept the assembly. "So was a jinchuuriki becoming Hokage. So was me standing here as something between human and god. We specialize in impossible."

"What do you propose?" Gaara asked, ever practical even in the face of cosmic horror.

"Alliance. Real alliance. Not just villages—everyone. Every ninja, every samurai, every monk who can channel chakra. Hell, every civilian who can hold a weapon." Naruto began pacing, each step leaving glass footprints. "Strange and Heimdall were clear—unity is our only chance."

"Against that?" Mei pointed at the fading vision of the Void King. "Unity of ants against a tsunami."

"Then we become a tsunami of ants." The contradiction made perfect sense in Naruto's divinely touched mind. "We adapt. Evolve. Take everything we know about chakra and push it further."

"You're talking about abandoning tradition," Onoki observed.

"I'm talking about survival." Lightning punctuated the statement. "Tradition won't mean much when we're all uncreated."

Silence stretched like taffy. Then, unexpectedly, Killer Bee stepped forward, his usual rap abandoned for rare seriousness. "The kid's right, you know it's true. Adapt or die, me and you. Yo."

"Was... was that supposed to rhyme?" Kankuro muttered.

"Focus!" Naruto's command cracked like a whip. "We have maybe weeks. Probably less. Every second we waste arguing is a second closer to extinction."

"What do you need?" Tsunade emerged from the crowd, and Naruto felt a pang seeing his mentor-figure regard him with such careful distance. But her voice held steel. "Specifics, brat. Grand speeches are fine, but what's the plan?"

Naruto's grin returned, wild and electric. "First, we stop pretending chakra has limits. Every restriction, every 'impossible' technique—we crack them all open. Second, we establish communication across dimensions. If I can punch holes in reality, we can send messages through them. Third—"

Space twisted. Through the distortion stepped someone impossible—a figure in armor that seemed forged from compressed galaxies, wielding a hammer that made Stormbreaker hum in recognition.

"Greetings, young bearer." The figure's voice carried the weight of dying stars. "I am Beta Ray Bill, and I have heard your call across the cosmic void. The quarantine weakens. Soon, others will answer. The question becomes—will your people be ready when the walls fall completely?"

Naruto's answer came without hesitation. "They will be. We'll make sure of it."

"Bold words." Bill studied him with eyes that had seen civilizations rise and fall. "But words are wind. Show me action, god-ling. Show me a people worth saving."

The challenge hung in the air like a blade. Around them, the assembled leaders of the ninja world exchanged glances—calculation mixing with desperation, pride warring with survival instinct.

It was Hinata who stepped forward first, electricity still dancing through her chakra network from her earlier contact with Naruto. "We'll learn. Adapt. Become whatever we need to become." Her quiet voice carried absolute conviction. "That's our way too."

One by one, others voiced agreement. Not enthusiasm—the truth was too terrible for that. But determination. Resolve. The same spirit that had carried them through impossible wars and unthinkable pain.

"Right then." Naruto raised Stormbreaker, and every eye followed the movement. "Spread the word. Every village, every outpost, every hermit in a cave. Training starts at dawn. Not ninja training—evolution training. We're going to teach lightning to dance with shadows, merge medical jutsu with divine energy, turn every impossible dream into a weapon against the dark."

"And if we fail?" The question came from someone in the crowd.

"Then we fail together." Naruto's words rang with finality. "But at least we'll fail trying, instead of waiting for the end like sheep."

Beta Ray Bill nodded approval. "Perhaps there is hope for this realm yet. I will carry word to those who still watch from outside. Prepare yourselves, humans. When the barriers fall completely, you will face trials that would break gods."

He vanished as suddenly as he'd appeared, leaving only the taste of cosmic storms.

The assembly began to disperse, minds reeling with impossibility and purpose. But Sasuke lingered, studying Naruto with those mismatched eyes that saw too much.

"You're different," he said quietly. "Not just the power. The way you think, speak, command. It's..."

"Godlike?" Naruto's laugh held bitter edges. "Yeah. Turns out divinity comes with a manual I never read. But Sasuke?" Lightning bridged the gap between them, not striking but connecting. "I'm still me where it counts. Still the idiot who refuses to give up. Just with bigger problems now."

"Hn." But Sasuke's small smile held volumes. "Then I suppose someone has to keep that idiot from destroying himself saving everyone else."

"That's what friends are for, right?"

The word hung between them—friend. After everything, still that. Still true.

As dawn approached, the shinobi world mobilized with purpose that transcended old boundaries. Hidden techniques were unveiled, forbidden scrolls opened, masters and students paired in combinations that would have been heresy days before.

Naruto stood atop the monument, watching it all with eyes that saw electrical patterns in every movement. Stormbreaker hummed against his back, satisfied with the night's work.

The void was coming. Hungry, patient, inevitable.

But it would find more than prey waiting.

It would find a world that had learned to bite back.

"Think it'll work?" Kurama asked, unusually subdued.

"No idea," Naruto admitted, lightning playing between his fingers. "But hey, when has that ever stopped us?"

The fox's laughter rumbled like distant thunder. "Never. And I suppose that's why we might just pull this off."

Above them, the dimensional barriers continued to crack. But now, through those cracks, came not just darkness but defiance—signals from other realities, other survivors, other impossible hopes refusing to die quietly.

The alliance had begun.

The real work started now.