The parchment realm screamed with every step they took. Words bled from the sky, reshaping reality like fragile threads of chakra. Phantom winds rustled through lines of unwritten dialogue, and every breath they took echoed like strokes against a page too ancient to recall its author.
The Rewriter moved like a concept unshackled—half-real, half-hypothesis.
Naruto darted through the ink-blurred space, slashing through malformed constructs with a Rasenshuriken that bled sparks and kanji. He wasn't just fighting to win—he was fighting to remember.
Because forgetting meant erasure.
And erasure meant death in this realm.
"You still don't get it," the Rewriter hissed, her pen glowing like a fragment of stolen fate. "This world you cling to? It was already a draft. I'm just correcting what should've been."
"You're wrong," Naruto said. "You're not correcting anything. You're hijacking everything."
Sasuke landed beside him, Sharingan spinning, Mangekyō burning a bloodline trail through the parchment fog. "This isn't about fixing the world. It's about control."
"You're scared," she spat. "You're afraid of what a world without limits looks like. But I'm not."
She drew a wide arc through the air with her pen.
From her stroke bloomed a landscape—an artificial Konoha, untouched by war, where Orochimaru was Hokage and peace ruled beneath his twisted reign.
"What... is this?" Sakura whispered, her fists tightening.
"A draft that never got published," Kai murmured. "One where the villains won and made peace their way."
The sky above the scene turned dark as stormclouds of broken arcs hovered above. There were no birds, only quills flapping in loops of infinite edits.
"We need to break her connection to the Archive," Kakashi said. "Or she'll keep spawning these unrealities."
Kai pulled out a fragmented scroll. "This is a Draft Seal. If I can get close enough, I might be able to trap her within one potential arc—long enough for you to strike."
Naruto nodded. "I'll make you the opening."
He launched himself, forming a Rasengan midair. But the Rewriter anticipated it. Her pen twisted, and a phantom version of Naruto—with six arms and Sharingan in every eye—collided into him.
They both crashed into floating script below, sending letters scattering into black fire.
Naruto growled, turning mid-roll to dispel the phantom with a single shout. "This isn't me!"
But the doppelganger just grinned. "It's what you could've been. That's what scares you."
Meanwhile, Sasuke summoned lightning through the parchment sky, aiming to destabilize the fabricated village. "Kirin: False Heaven!"
Bolts cascaded through the sky, but the village remained intact—reinforced by narrative intent.
"She's anchored it," Kai shouted. "She's writing anchors into the setting itself!"
Naruto forced his way through the phantom's final strike, reaching Kai's side. "Then we cut the anchors."
Together, they dashed toward the glowing pen in her hand.
The Rewriter spun again, her eyes glowing with unstable chakra. "You want to play Scribes? Fine. Let's see how far your edits reach."
She stabbed her pen into the air.
Suddenly, Kakashi vanished.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura shouted.
They turned—and found him mid-scene in a different reality. One where he'd never survived the Third War. Where Obito stood alone.
"She's isolating us in What-Ifs," Kai said, trembling. "Every stab she takes forces a divergence."
Naruto clenched the Quill.
And then he remembered something.
When he'd first met the Quill—when the Editor had given it to him—he hadn't just received power.
He'd received the right to rewrite without deletion.
"I don't need to erase you," Naruto said quietly. "I just need to correct you."
He leapt into the air, raising the Quill above his head. It glowed with golden chakra and memory, resonating with every true moment that had built his world.
He pointed it at the Rewriter and began to write:
"Let the impostor's anchors unravel. Let the truth of memory outshine the illusion of possibility."
The ground beneath them trembled.
The artificial Konoha flickered, then exploded in a rain of crumbling drafts.
The phantom Naruto screamed and melted into raw text.
The Rewriter staggered back. Her cloak began to shred, ink dripping from the seams.
"No..." she said. "You're not supposed to be able to revise my edits!"
Naruto landed, chakra sparking off his form. "You forgot one thing. The power of a Quill isn't just in writing. It's in remembering what matters."
Kai unleashed the Draft Seal. A spiral of light wrapped around her, trapping her within the remains of her own alternate arc.
But just as she was being sealed, she whispered something that made them all freeze.
"You think you've won. But I'm not the only Rewriter. I'm just a page. The Author is still watching."
And then she vanished—along with the last of the false Konoha.
Silence returned to the parchment sky.
Kakashi reappeared beside them, bruised but alive.
Kai lowered the seal, chest heaving. "So it's true. There's someone above even the Editors."
Naruto looked at the Quill.
And for a brief moment, it pulsed with something strange.
Not memory. Not chakra.
But anticipation.
As if someone else was waiting for their next move.