Naruto: Chronicles of the Lost Library

(Sorry guys but this chapter is more filler rather than canon based)

The Library was too quiet.

Not the peaceful kind. The kind that made you feel like someone just finished screaming.

Naruto walked. Or maybe staggered. His legs didn't trust the floor anymore. Every tile creaked like it remembered blood.

"Fucking Raian. Fucking Kazuki. You old bastards played me."

He slammed a fist against the wall. Dust fell. The walls didn't react.

The scrolls in his bag shifted, still warm. He wanted to burn them. Wanted to burn this whole cursed tomb and piss on the ashes. But no—he kept walking.

Ahead was a hallway he hadn't noticed before.

And something was… humming.

Not chakra. Not a trap.

Voices. Quiet ones. The kind you hear in dreams, or right before you pass out.

"Naruto…"

He spun.

Nothing.

"Yeah, okay. Real mature, haunted-ass library," he muttered, dragging his boots across another black tile.

The walls here were tighter. Closer. Like the hallway was shrinking the further he went.

And at the end? A door.

Old. Splintered. Hinges rusted to hell.

It wasn't sealed. No glow. No chakra lock. Just waiting.

He pushed it open.

Inside—nothing.

Just shelves. Thousands of them. Packed with scrolls. Most unreadable. Rotting. Molded with time.

"Fucking perfect," he muttered, stepping in.

As soon as his foot crossed the line—

BAM.

The door slammed shut.

The air changed.

Heavy.

Choking.

And the shelves? They moved.

Just… slightly. But enough.

He froze.

"…don't."

Too late.

A voice. Not chakra. Real.

From behind a shelf.

He yanked out a kunai and rounded the edge—

And froze.

"Kairo?"

The boy was there. Leaning against a broken desk. Clothes ripped. Blood on his shoulder.

Naruto blinked twice.

"You died."

Kairo shrugged.

"Apparently not."

"Bullshit," Naruto snapped. "I watched the flames take you. Saw your fucking bones."

Kairo gave him a look.

"Then why the hell are you here, huh? This place only shows up to people with memory debt."

"…Memory what?"

"You heard me."

Naruto stepped closer.

"You better start making fucking sense, or I'm going to drag your corpse out of here and make you explain to Tsunade."

Kairo grinned, teeth bloody.

"Go ahead. Ask me what year it is."

"What?"

"Just do it."

Naruto frowned. "…What year is it?"

Kairo paused.

Shrugged.

"I don't remember."

That was the moment Naruto realized this wasn't the real Kairo.

Not exactly.

"You're an Echo."

Kairo smirked. Sad.

"Something like that. Memory got torn apart during the collapse. This… this is what's left."

"Of you?"

"Of me. Of a few others. Of the truth you're scared to look at."

Naruto stared at him. "What happened to Kazuki?"

Kairo blinked slowly.

"He ran."

"I know that already—"

"No. You think you do. But he didn't just run. He made a deal."

The lights dimmed.

Scrolls on the shelves caught flame for a split second. Then snuffed.

Kairo stepped forward.

"There was something buried deeper. Beneath even the Library. Something Kazuki fed."

"Fed what?"

"Us."

The room shook.

Naruto stumbled back.

Kairo was fading.

"You wanna fix things? You stop chasing truth. Start chasing memory. And don't trust the voice that calls itself Kazuki anymore."

"Wait—Kairo—"

Too late.

The boy's face melted like wax. The Echo snapped out of reality.

The shelves stopped moving.

Silence.

Naruto stood there, fists shaking.

"What the fuck is going on…"

He looked around.

No doors.

Just rows.

And rows.

And rows.

This wasn't a Library anymore.

It was a graveyard of half-remembered lies.

He picked up a scroll nearby.

Blank.

Another.

Rotted.

A third—

Flamebearer 04: Naruto Uzumaki

He froze.

There was a seal on it.

One he hadn't seen before.

It pulsed with his chakra.

Not Kazuki's.

Not Raian's.

His.

"Oh you've got to be shitting me."

He unrolled it. The ink glowed.

His own handwriting. But he hadn't written this.

If I'm reading this, I'm not me anymore.

It ended there.

Naruto screamed.

"FUCK THIS PLACE."

He lit the scroll on fire. The flames curved. Shaped into a face.

His.

Burned.

Laughing.

He stomped it out.

There was no more sense here.

No more logic.

Just echoes.

And if he didn't get out soon—

He'd become one of them.