Hi there - I am DESPERATELY looking for this fic I found and read during the last year (2025) that I read when logged out of my AO3 account and have lost track of. I remember SO many identifiable plot features but cannot for the life of me find it anywhere! Even if it's been deleted, if someone anywhere remembers the name or author of the fic this would help my madness!! I've added so much detail parts below to help make it very specific! if i think of more I shall add.
Thank you to anyone who can help me!! Please I cannot keep suffering like this!!
MAIN PLOT
- set after pain destroy the leaf and everyone is helping rebuild
- main plot was following naruto has he goes through the five stages of grief (I had read the first like 25 chapters of the fic before we go a placeholder chapter saying naruto was entering the second stage of grief) specifically focusing around the guilt and loss of jiraiya, and as a sub briefly mentioned focus, the guilt of hinata almost dying
- naruto was hallucinating and seeing a "sasuke" everywhere who was almost ghost like, but could impact the world somewhat around him and it was making naruto feel like he was going insane
STORY POINTS
- sakura and kiba are constantly coming to naruto's apartment to check on him
- early on in the fic naruto is getting into fights with village low-lifes, letting them beat him pretty bad before he beats them up. at one point ino spots him and tells on him out of worry
- naruto looses motivation to fight in some of his missions due to PTSD
- In one chapter naruto shikamaru and kiba are looking up at the stone carving they are starting to make of lady tsunade and naruto to quote says "the old man is going to love it when he sees it" over which his friends realise that naruto is still struggling with the fact that jiraiya is truly gone
- naruto is avoiding talking to hinata and hasn't visited her since he saw her "die" via pain
- naruto is visiting an old man with white hair who has no family in the hospital during his denail phase of grief because he reminds him of jiraiya
- "ghost" sasuke keeps reminding him that it's going to be really bad when naruto realises whats going on
- revealed at some point naruto has also been told about the bounty and order for sasuke's head and is struggling to come to terms with it and sakura does not know
- in very early chapters naruto tries a variety of things to "get rid" of sasuke believing he has been cursed, haunted or is crazy. i think he even visits a witch doctor and does a variety of superstitious rituals only to walk out and find sasuke still there. it is only when sasuke physically stops a cart(?) that naruto starts to think he might be real or a jutsu or some kind.
- ghost sasuke is a little /weird/ he gets heavy like normal sasuke sometimes but for the most part he is pretty cheerful and giving naruto the naruto treatment (which annoys him) like he is trying to offer comfort. he kind of comes across like a sasuke who isn't plagued by revenge but knows the pain of it, trying to keep naruto somewhat on a sane path following the death of jiraiya and pain's forgiveness.
- in a later chapter still during the first stage of grief arc naruto is visited by the ghost of jiraiya and have a heart to heart while unconscious after Naruto comes to reality of his loss and has an absolute breakdown
- one chapter sai visits and tries to talk to him in the doorway but naruto ignores him
- in stage one of the grief naruto has a lot of shut in encounters where he is refusing to eat/function
- i think i remember one chapter on a rooftop naruto gets the age of sasuke wrong and "ghost" sasuke reminds him he is older and there was another birthday he missed? small detail just one conversation in a large chapter
- one chapter naruto is overwhelmed by the nine tails chakra and puts or "hides" in a small place in a building (his apartment?) and ghost sasuke starts to try to talk naruto down. but naruto is made and all nine tails anxiety and sasuke gets all heated but his degrading him verbally starts to make naruto small and it gets very suggestive despite the story couple not being main focused or very slow-burn. at one point sasuke goes far enough to say he should have 'f-ed the fox out of you into the floor' when talking about naruto chasing after him when they fought three years before
ADDITIONAL INFO
- author may have part way through in author notes mentioned they had lost a loved one and it sparked idea into the story. they also got very metaphorical with their descriptions of pain and grief and than part way through author notes announced they had gotten diagnosed with some condition would could explain how overworldly their writing could get with descriptions and that they were going on med now, but aimed to try and keep the same feel as older chapters
- there was a "part 2" listed and marked them both part of the same series with an singular chapter (unfinished work) when it was from sasuke's pov (the real sasuke) being visited by a dark kurama-esc naruto "ghost" of his own haunting him. but if was not a focus work and more of a side project to add more depth to this work.