"Mean," grumbled Naruto to himself, beginning to sulk.
"'Self-control' is what you said. I see what you were thinking though is a bit more expanded upon."
"You can read minds?" asked Naruto.
"If I chose to read minds down through the levels you are currently thinking of, it would cut down on the surprise factor. So no. I am however reading the surface thoughts and upper layer in order to better understand what you are intending."
"Oh," said Naruto, thinking that it was good that the Being in question wasn't reading too deep otherwise he'd know about-
"So yes, Kakashi Hatake, I also know you're being dismissive and obstinate on purpose because you don't like not being in complete control of the situation. Because this is unfamiliar ground for you, that you are actually concerned about your students, and four other reasons I can see that are all knotted together into an uncertain knot. And no, Naruto, nobody at all cares about you sneaking a photograph of Sakura that you can look at it and sigh happily late at night."
"WHAT?!"
"See, I'm surprised right there because that was somehow enough to wake Sakura up right through the low-level sleep charm I slapped her with at the beginning of this conversation."
"Great going, passing-deity-san," grumbled Naruto.
"He does WHAT with a photo of me at night?!" demanded Sakura.
"Takes it out once in awhile, looks at it at night, then dreams of becoming Hokage while married to you. Pretty innocent stuff, but I understand that's not atypical of his age bracket. Certainly nothing like some of Kakashi Hatake's dreams of capturing certain enemy kunoichi and enacting parts of the Icha Icha series to get them to defect to Konoha."
Kakashi shrugged slightly. "I thought you weren't scanning deep."
"I wasn't. You thought about how lame Naruto's dreams were in relation to your own."
"Ah," said Kakashi.
"So. Self-control. Though you were also thinking about his memory and attention problems. His lack of survival instinct. His desire to do everything himself and attack problems straight-on. His lack of understanding. Hmmm. Interesting. How to do this in a different manner."
"'Different'?" asked Naruto, not understanding any of that.
"Parallel timelines. Other universes where this conversation went in other directions. Gotta change things up, you know."
"No - actually, I don't," complained Naruto.
Poof!
"Naruto vanished?" asked Sakura before going to his pack and starting the search for this rogue photo of her.
"Sometimes it's better to show than tell. He's off in another universe where time flows differently, having adventures in which he learns all sorts of new and different things. And will return to this universe in one hour."
"An hour to learn something? Naruto? He'll never learn - ah hah!" said Sakura, pulling out a book and then a photo from it. To her disappointment and relief - it was just a photo from the Academy where she was talking with an out-of-focus Ino. Rip rip rip shred.
"Time flows differently there. Hmmm. Maybe I ought to stick a kunoichi or two in there, change things up some. Yes. She'll do nicely. And this will grant Sakura's wish as well."
"Sakura didn't make a wish," pointed out Kakashi.
"Surface thoughts. She was wishing that Naruto would focus on someone else rather than her."
Sakura blinked as she put the shredded photo away. "So who is this other kunoichi? And where IS Naruto anyway?"
"Is this a genjutsu or what?" asked Tenten, pointing at something.
"Is what a genjutsu?" asked Neji, scowling as he thought this might be some sort of joke and he just had NO patience for such things.
"There's a rectangle hanging in midair in front of me," said Tenten.
"There is writing on this 'rectangle'?" asked Kurenai Yuhi. "What does it say?"
Hinata nodded and read it off. "It says 'Go on adventure with Naruto Uzumaki. Exotic location. Availability of nonstandard skills to learn and equipment to acquire. One hour duration here is one year of adventure there.' Then there are two buttons underneath that. One reads 'Accept' and the other reads 'Reject'?"
"That's all?" asked Kurenai Yuhi, frowning as she tried to make sense of it. She couldn't see anything or detect a genjutsu. Maybe something like a Yamanaka mind-to-mind technique?
"There's a question mark here next to the two buttons," said Hinata, pointing.
Fuu frowned as she kicked her legs while sitting on the ledge. Her fingers touched the question mark and another odd floating rectangle appeared.
According to whatever weird trick this was, it said that if she died on the adventure - the only effect would be to return to her normal life immediately.
Possible benefits was a friend with potential romantic overtones, though no guarantee of anything was involved.
That was the only part making any sense to her. NOTHING was ever guaranteed.
"Huh," said Fuu of Takigakure, considering which button to press.
Oh great, a timer had just appeared and was counting down from 00:59. Which meant that if she checked around to see if this was some prank being played on her - the time would run out.
"So, 'Naruto Uzumaki' is a genin ninja-slash-child of prophesy in a magic-ninja setting and is a 'shonen protaganist' type," read aloud Yui Hisakawa.
"That's what mine says too," said Ritsu, pointing.
"Should we just ignore it?" asked Mio.
"It has nothing to do with us," said Tsumugi. "Just let the timer run out. Just some prank."
"It does seem kind of outside the usual things," agreed Ritsu. "I can't see how the trick works though."
"It's an obvious trap," said Haruka.
"Are you sure? It seems too obvious to be a trap," said Minako. "I mean, really. 'Ninja'?"
"Time and space are distorted near the signs," said Setsuna. "Whatever it is - it's fairly powerful."
"So let the timer run out," advised Michiru.
"So you think it's an evil plot too, Michiru-san?" asked Usagi.
"No," said Michiru. "Not evil. Not good either. Something else."
"My scans have revealed nothing in particular either way," noted Sailor Mercury as she was the only one of them who'd gone to senshi identity when the things had appeared.
"So it might be a ninja trick, right?" asked Minako. "I mean tricky and ninja go together like vegimite and apricot jelly."
"Tell me you don't actually eat the two together," pleaded Rei, who actually knew what the first substance tasted like due to curiosity after a song she'd heard had mentioned it.
"This is strangeness beyond strange, Shiskabooboo."
"I still cannot see anything," complained the large mech next to her. "And, if I may remind you, my name is Gedachtnis."
"Be that as it may, Booboo, I have read to you what the floating words say, even if it uses many words I am not familiar with," said the girl-shaped robot. "I have done fourteen system checks, three sensor-specific checks, and gotten stuck on a loop of 'It is a diminuitive planetary-mass earth-body in the end.' And finally gotten out of it after thirty-four thousand iterations."
"I believe the name is 'It's a small world after all', Ojou-sama," said Gedachtnis.
"Now it's going again. Nice work Booboo," said Drossel. "Broke it again. Never bring that song up again."
"Perhaps we should play it for the human troops now approaching. We may be able to annoy them enough they would go away," said Gedachtnis.
"Or they would begin a city-wide bombardment," said Drossel, striding forward towards the massed troops and tanks. "The timer is going very slowly."
"I see," said Gedachtnis, hanging back lest he draw fire. It was possible that Drossel's father had designed Drossel herself and her programming to be largely nonthreatening and very human in both personality and design specifically for the inevitable meeting with the human populace.
The small white robot girl stopped at the edge of her city and noted that the colorless banner, which was apparently the human manner to indicate that more words were to be used in this encounter than anti-mech penetrating rockets, was still there. She'd take that as a good sign. "I am the 19th Lord of Uranos' Kingdom's Tempest Domain! Drossel Juno Vierzehntes Heizregister Furstin Von Flugel! I wish to speak with the commander of the human forces."
"Stand down. Lower weapons. Preparing communication channel."
Drossel clapped her hands together. It was working. She would at last be able to speak with humans and this war would end.
POOM!
Except that one of the armored soldiers had just fired a homing rocket at her. Electronic countermeasures began automatically, and she prepared to try and move out of the way.
Still there was that odd pop-up to her immediate right, with the counter now going "00:03" - her hand came up to hit the 'Reject' button and hopefully clear its blockage of visual input.
"So - where do you suppose he went?" asked Sakura.
"Troublesome," said Kakashi.
Meanwhile:
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(Posted Sat, 11 Jan 2014 17:23)
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