The Summoner of Legends

With the threats eliminated, instinct began to fade.

Slowly, the fury that had consumed Naruto receded, like a tide finally retreating after ravaging everything in its path. The connection between his body and mind started to restore itself—fragmented, unsteady.

The flames that had enveloped him flickered weakly before vanishing, leaving only a faint trace of heat in the air, like the lingering echo of a nightmare made real.

His body, covered in wounds, began to heal at an unnatural pace. The smaller cuts sealed shut almost instantly, thin wisps of smoke rising from his skin as if his injuries were being cauterized from within. But not all wounds disappeared. The deeper stab wounds remained as jagged scars—permanent marks that would tell the story of this brutality long after the blood had dried.

Naruto gasped, his breathing heavy and uneven, as his vision slowly began to clear. The red haze that had clouded his world—the overwhelming rage that had blinded him—started to fade. In its place, the familiar darkness of Gotham returned, that endless gloom that cloaked the city like a funeral shroud.

But something wasn't right.

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His body felt strange, as if it didn't entirely belong to him. A faint tremor ran through his limbs, and every breath felt foreign, like he was watching himself from the outside.

His mind was still dazed, struggling to piece together what had happened. Everything was a mess of shattered images—blows, screams, blood… too much blood. He tried to take a step, but his foot hit something heavy.

Frowning, he looked down. Something slick and soft was blocking his movement. With an extra effort, he pulled his leg free, and the wet, sickening sound of something peeling away from his boot shattered the eerie silence.

A chill ran down his spine. The sharp, metallic scent of blood filled the air, mixing with the acrid stench of fear that still clung to the alley.

His stomach twisted, and the knot in his throat tightened. Dreading the worst, he slowly lowered his gaze to the ground.

Flesh.

Jagged, blood-soaked pieces scattered around his feet. The crimson liquid glistened under the flickering light of a distant streetlamp, forming chaotic patterns on the asphalt.

Naruto instinctively staggered backward, his heart pounding violently in his chest. Each beat was a drum in his ears, a relentless reminder that he was alive. But what he saw before him… it didn't make sense.

—"What… what is this…?"— he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

The trembling in his hands spread to the rest of his body. For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut, wishing that everything would disappear when he opened them. But when he did, the horror remained, as real as the cold now seeping into his bones.

He turned clumsily— and what he saw left him frozen in place.

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The alley was pure chaos.

The ground was drenched in blood, a crimson river that looked as if it had erupted straight from the bowels of hell. It pooled in dark puddles, glistening under the flickering streetlights, tracing erratic paths that intertwined like open veins on the asphalt.

The bodies of the thugs were scattered everywhere, motionless, as if they had been tossed aside in a frenzy of unrestrained brutality. Some lay with limbs twisted at impossible angles, others with wounds so grotesque they were barely recognizable as human.

Naruto swallowed hard. Every detail of the scene struck him like a hammer, each image a stake driven deep into his mind.

It was a massacre.

One of the men had his skull completely crushed. Fragments of bone and tissue were strewn across the ground in a macabre mosaic of death. Another was slumped against a wall, his torso bent at an unnatural angle, as if his body had simply given out under the sheer weight of the violence.

But what caught Naruto's attention the most was the hole in the wall behind him— a blood-stained circle where the man's head should have been. The absence was as horrifying as the blood surrounding it.

Naruto averted his gaze, but there was no escape. Every corner of the alley reflected the aftermath of his unleashed fury.

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"What… have I done?"

The question surfaced in his mind like a whisper, barely audible beneath the deafening sound of his own breathing.

He tried to step back, to distance himself, but his foot struck something again. A shiver ran down his spine as he glanced downward.

A fragment of flesh.

It was a piece of something unrecognizable, mangled beyond any discernible form. Naruto felt his stomach twist, a knot tightening in his throat as the stench of blood, iron, and despair saturated the air around him.

"No… this can't be happening."

He brought a hand to his mouth, struggling to hold back the nausea threatening to overtake him, but the horror surrounded him from every angle. Every breath felt heavy, as if the very air was thick with guilt.

—"What… the hell…"— he whispered, his voice cracking like shattered glass.

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His hands began to tremble.

It wasn't the cold that made him shudder. It was realization—the slow, horrifying certainty that started to pierce through the fog in his mind.

This wasn't a nightmare.

It was real.

All of it.

His eyes darted frantically, searching for something—anything—that could prove this hadn't happened, that it was just a trick of his imagination or a bad dream. But there was no escape. Every corner of the alley reflected the same grotesque sight: blood, death, destruction.

Naruto stumbled back a step. Then another. He felt his chest tighten, his heart pounding so hard that each beat echoed in his ears.

"Did I… do this?"

The question hit him like thunder, a truth he refused to accept.

He looked at his hands. They trembled like leaves in the wind, stained with both fresh and dried blood, a mixture that burned against his skin like acid.

"What… am I…?"

The words left his lips in a barely audible whisper, but inside, they roared like an avalanche.

For a moment, his strength wavered. His vision blurred, and a sudden dizziness forced him to lean against a nearby wall. The alley lights flickered, the world spun around him—but the bodies remained. The pools of blood remained. The scars in the air remained.

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut, clenching them tightly. He tried to erase the images, but he couldn't. They were seared into his mind, as if his very soul had absorbed them.

Finally, he opened his eyes and looked around once more.

The same scene.

The same horror.

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Naruto felt his knees threaten to buckle under the weight of the truth as his mind filled with fragmented images, each one more vivid and terrifying than the last.

Flashes of the blows. The strangled screams. The exact moment when the gang leader's skull had burst beneath his foot, leaving behind a wet, sickening echo that still reverberated in his memory.

He remembered the fury. The fire. The hatred.

It had burned inside him, consuming him, blinding him to everything else. He remembered the sensation of breaking bones, of tearing through flesh, of destroying without remorse.

But what he couldn't remember was the moment it all changed.

When had he lost control?

When had he stopped being himself?

His breathing turned erratic, each breath a battle against the panic clawing at his chest. He took a step back, but there was no escape. The bodies were everywhere, motionless, silent—a constant reminder of what had happened.

Naruto clenched his teeth, struggling to contain the tidal wave of emotions threatening to crush him. Anger, guilt, fear… all of them fought for dominance, a storm he couldn't silence.

"This can't be real," he thought, shaking his head as if the truth could be erased with a simple denial. "This isn't me. This can't be me."

But he knew.

He knew the truth.

He had done this.

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Finally, with unsteady steps, he began to walk. Getting away was the only thing he could do. Each step echoed in the silence of the night, each footfall accompanied by the relentless storm of thoughts swirling in his mind.

There was no one else there.

Only him.

But what he left behind in that alley would follow him.

Always.