Naruto: Chronicles of the Lost Library

The chamber was quiet. The scrolls floated above him, still—except one.

It trembled.

Naruto felt it before he saw it—a sharp pull, like something deep in the stone had just woken up. The scroll slowly drifted down in front of him, glowing red.

Something about it made his chest tighten.

"Another one of these...?"

He reached out.

The instant his fingers brushed the edge, flames burst around him. But they didn't burn. They weren't hot. Just… light. Blinding and heavy. Like being trapped in the middle of a storm.

---

He wasn't in the room anymore.

He stood in a valley covered in smoke and ash. The sky was gray. The wind was silent. Around him lay fallen shinobi—people from clans he'd never seen before. Their symbols were strange. Some looked older than anything he'd read about. Some looked like they shouldn't even exist.

In the middle of the battlefield stood a boy.

Young. Maybe Naruto's age.

He had silver hair and eyes like fire.

He held a scroll in one hand. His other hand was covered in blood.

"I tried," the boy said quietly. "But the scroll lied."

The vision shifted.

Now an older man in black was screaming, his arm burning as the scroll ate through it like acid.

A woman in white raised her hands to seal it—but vanished in a flash of light.

Then a little boy. Just five. Marked by flame. Crying and begging to forget whatever he saw.

So many lives. All touched by the same scroll.

All broken by it.

"Flame-Bearers," a voice whispered. "Chosen. Cursed."

Naruto gasped and stumbled back. The scroll fell from his hands, hitting the floor with a soft thud. Smoke curled from his fingers.

He couldn't breathe right. His chest rose and fell too fast. Sweat stuck to his skin.

"What... was that?"

He looked at his hand. No burn marks.

But it still shook.

That scroll wasn't a jutsu.

It was a warning.

A message:

They tried. They failed.

He looked up at the floating scrolls above him.

"I'm not them."

His voice was low. Unsteady. But he meant it.

"I won't lose to this place."

The chamber didn't move. The air didn't shift.

But for the first time… it felt like the library was watching him differently.

Maybe, just maybe… it accepted him now.