The moment the girl stepped into the fractured village, it felt as if every rule of chakra, time, and memory had shivered in terror.
The Rewriter didn't walk—she simply was. With every step she took, timelines bent around her like brushstrokes on a parchment that refused to stay still. Her presence erased the ground behind her and redrew it into versions that never existed. The sky above her rippled between day and night.
Naruto's hand tightened around the Quill.
Sasuke activated his Sharingan. "What... is she rewriting?"
Kai's voice shook. "She's not just editing memories. She's altering continuity. We could lose everything we've anchored so far."
The girl's eyes were mismatched—one Rinnegan, one swirling with ink-black Byakugan, both pulsing with unstable chakra signatures. Her gaze fell on Naruto.
"You're the one holding the Quill," she said, voice layered in echoes. "But you're not the True Author."
Naruto stepped forward. "I don't need to be. I just need to stop you."
She tilted her head. "Stop me from fixing what you've broken?"
"You're rewriting lives that never should've existed," Sakura shouted. "That's not fixing anything."
The Rewriter lifted the fanfic fragment she held—a page glowing red with corrupted chakra. As she channeled energy through it, more scenes formed behind her—phantom versions of familiar characters, twisted into exaggerated forms.
A Sakura who never forgave.
A Sasuke who killed Itachi and took his place.
A Naruto who joined Akatsuki.
They flickered like puppets pulled from bad drafts and toxic speculation. And they moved.
"She's pulling characters from Rejection Drafts," Kai said. "They were meant to be destroyed."
"They weren't destroyed," the girl replied calmly. "They were erased. Forgotten. Silenced."
She pointed the page toward Naruto.
A phantom Naruto with dark robes and glowing red Rasengan launched from the page. The real Naruto barely dodged, crashing into the broken walls of what used to be Ichiraku.
Kai shouted, "We need to destroy the fragment she's using!"
Sasuke nodded, his Sharingan burning. "Then we don't hold back."
They moved in unison.
Naruto leapt through the air, Rasengan forming with both hands. He twisted, adding wind chakra, forging a dual Fūton: Twin Gale Sphere. Sasuke flashed behind the Rewriter, his blade coated in black lightning.
"Kirin: Rift Fang!"
The bolt struck, but the Rewriter's phantom clones intercepted—exploding into ink and screams.
Sakura punched through the earth, creating a sinkhole to trap the twisted characters. For a moment, they flickered—unsure if they were meant to fall or fly.
"Keep her from reading another page!" Kai shouted.
Kakashi surged forward, using Kamui to distort the Rewriter's space. For a split second, her form shimmered.
That's when Naruto struck.
The twin Rasengan collided with the corrupted fanfic fragment in her hand.
The page screamed.
Ink exploded.
And the Rewriter was knocked back, her arm burnt and twitching.
But she didn't fall.
Instead, she smiled.
"You broke one page," she whispered. "But I have the Archive's Key."
From her cloak, she pulled out something small, glowing with raw narrative energy.
A broken pen.
Kai froze. "That's... the Editor's Draft Pen. But it was destroyed—!"
"No," the Rewriter said. "He just dropped it... right before he lost."
The pen pulsed.
And suddenly, the ground beneath them inverted.
They weren't in Konoha anymore.
They were standing on parchment.
Literal parchment.
A massive, endless white space with flowing ink all around them, and words forming like veins in the sky.
Kai's mouth dried. "She's taken us into a Raw Draft Layer. This isn't even real yet. We're fighting inside potential."
The Rewriter stood above them, now glowing with half-formed chakra trails. Behind her, entire versions of Konoha hovered in the void—one where Danzo was Hokage, another where Minato survived.
"You fight for one truth," she said. "I fight for possibility."
Naruto's fists clenched. "Possibility without consequence is chaos."
She raised her pen.
And wrote a single word.
"Die."
A thousand phantom kunai appeared midair and rained down on them.
Kai and Sasuke moved instantly. Sakura formed a massive chakra shield while Kakashi unleashed twin lightning wolves.
Naruto closed his eyes.
Then focused.
He pulled the Quill from his belt, and instead of defending, he wrote.
"Rewrite denied. Target: Phantom Constructs. Status: Nullified."
The kunai shattered into white dust.
The Rewriter's expression changed.
"You can write, too," she whispered. "Then this truly is a battle of Scribes."
"I don't want to write a new world," Naruto said. "I want to remember the real one."
They clashed.
Ink met ink.
Chakra collided with potential.
And as the Raw Draft Layer bent around them, the stakes became clearer.
This wasn't just about saving their world.
It was about deciding which world deserved to exist at all.