Naruto: Chronicles of the Lost Library

The scroll didn't burn.

It hissed, twitched, then flared—blue flame first, then red. The fire spiraled upward, coiling into a crooked shape. Naruto narrowed his eyes.

A fucking fingerprint. Made of fire.

He stepped closer. The flame coiled again and spoke.

But it wasn't just sound. The voice hit like chakra. Thick, warped. Dragging his gut down like gravity.

Raian. Younger. Quieter. Not broken yet.

"If you're reading this, you're late. Doesn't matter. You came anyway. Just like I did."

Naruto clenched his damn teeth. The flames twisted. A room formed around him—memory, not real. Raian stood alone. A boy in dark robes, face clean, untouched by scars. He looked like someone still dumb enough to believe in hope.

"I found the truth first. I begged them not to touch it. Not to open the gate."

Gate?

Naruto's breath stopped mid-fucking-air.

Raian kept running his damn mouth.

"Kazuki said we could handle it. Said we were chosen. That our minds were strong enough to bear the weight."

He scoffed. Bitter. Rotting with hate.

"He was wrong. And when shit hit the fan, guess who fucking ran first?"

The flame snapped inward. Raian's eyes turned black. Not powerful. Just hateful.

"Kazuki left. Took the best records, sealed what he couldn't steal, and ran like a coward. Left me with the wreckage. With the screams. With the fucking Echo."

The room shattered like a mirror dropped from heaven. Naruto stumbled as the memory caved in. The scroll dropped to the floor like it had just bled itself dry.

"…No," Naruto muttered.

He didn't believe it. Not yet. Not entirely.

Kazuki had warned him. Left trails. Voice threads. Screamed warnings no one else could've given.

But something inside his gut twisted like a knife.

And the Library wasn't done fucking with him.

A second scroll appeared—no flames. Just a dry, cracked tube, tied shut with black string like it was ashamed to exist.

Naruto bent down, ripped the knot, and unrolled it.

Blood. Smudged at the bottom. Fingerprints. Writing tighter than a madman's teeth.

He read the first damn line aloud.

"Kazuki Uzumaki lied about the Flame."

His stomach clenched like he'd swallowed a kunai.

He kept reading.

"He burned files. Dozens. Hid the record of the Failed Bearers. We found one alive. Mouth sealed shut. Bones fused to a wall."

"When we tried to speak to it… it remembered Kazuki. And screamed."

Naruto's throat felt like ash.

Kazuki had always acted like someone hunted. Haunted. But this? This was some next-level horror.

There were names in the scroll. Other bearers Kazuki had worked with. All marked dead in accidents. All gone during the same 'chamber collapse.'

Bullshit.

You don't lose six elite chakra wielders in a 'collapse' and move on like it's just Tuesday.

A note scribbled in the margin.

"He didn't betray us. He betrayed the Flame."

And the final line?

The one that stabbed deepest?

"If Raian's mad… maybe it's because he remembered everything Kazuki tried to erase."

Naruto sat down.

Not because he was tired.

Because his damn legs gave out.

His hand touched the floor. Cold. Real. Unlike everything else.

"Fuck…"

He didn't know who to trust anymore.

Kazuki — the ghost who left behind riddles, warnings, and guilt?

Or Raian — the bastard who went full villain just trying to remember what was stolen?

He played that message over again in his mind.

Kazuki ran.

He sealed what he couldn't steal.

And left me with the wreckage.

Naruto remembered Kazuki's old loop — back in that cursed chamber.

That one last flickering line, carved in chakra like blood.

"If you're here, it's already too damn late."

That wasn't a warning.

It was a fucking confession.

Naruto looked down at the scroll. Fist clenched. Parchment crumpled like a corpse.

Then he threw it.

"Both of you are assholes."

The scroll hit the wall. Dropped like the dead weight it was.

He got up, bones aching. Pain screaming.

At the end of the room, a mirror. Not chakra. Not magic. Just filthy glass. Cracked. Honest.

He walked up to it.

Looked into it.

And saw both of them.

Kazuki's eyes.

Raian's mouth.

His own face, mangled between two fucking ghosts, two cursed legacies he never asked for.

"I'm not cleaning up your damn mess."

He turned from the mirror. Picked up the original scroll — the flameprint. Cold now. Dead.

Still, the edge burned like a fingerprint on a crime scene.

He shoved it in his bag.

"I'll figure this shit out myself. No more riddles. No more ghost notes."

No more fucking lies.

The Library's hallway ahead narrowed, darker than guilt. Like it wanted to choke him.

But Naruto didn't stop.

He didn't flinch.

Because now?

He wasn't chasing answers.

He was chasing the goddamn ass truth.

And if that meant burning both Kazuki's and Raian's bullshit to the fucking ground?

Then so be fucking it.