Hiruzen Sarutobi was an experienced shinobi. So when a dream changed from being a normal dream he was immediately aware of it.
He put down the banjo and looked away from the creek. Eyes scanned the forest and his little cabin, neither of which had been this way in decades. His fishing lines continued to bob in the stream. It looked the way it had a few moments previously, but he knew things had changed.
"You might as well come out," said the Third Hokage.
A glowing light formed in mid-air. "Greetings and salutations, Hiruzen Sarutobi/Third Hokage/Professor."
"Your real form, if you would," said the Hokage.
"Difficult," said the glowing light. "In terms that you would understand, I have no 'real form' - I am an entity that was born outside of space and time as you understand them."
"Try me, I understand quite a lot," said the Hokage.
The glowing light became a black housecat. As in a cat the size of a house. "No. Really. You regard the progression of time as a strict progression of cause to effect but from a non-linear non-subjective viewpoint, it's really a big ball of timey-wimey stuff."
"'Timey-wimey stuff'?" asked the Hokage skeptically.
"Part of the problem is language. Here."
The Hokage staggered even in his dreamscape as he caught a glimpse of time and space from the outside. "I... see."
"Mind you, that's all heavily edited and altered a bit for human sensory perception. Your minds are structured to accept three spatial dimensions and a temporal medium. Viewing time as simply where all points exist simultaneously is a bit difficult for humans at this point. I think."
"So, why exactly have you decided to visit?" asked the Hokage. "A social call?"
"An offer actually," said the cat.
"What do you get out of it?" asked the Hokage, conjuring his pipe up.
"Amusement."
"I'll hear you out," said the Hokage.
An offer was made. A counteroffer applied. The bargaining began in earnest after that.
Kurama stirred in the darkness. Something had changed, but what? Same cage in same sewer with same pipes which framed the same window. It was better than being pinned by spikes or shackles to a rock, but hardly what he'd consider...
If he'd had an endoskeleton, his neck would have cracked from the speed. He had a window. Someone had put in a freaking WINDOW! He could see, not just sense things. There were bars over the window, and it wasn't a BIG window, but it was still several layers better than what he'd had.
Hmmm. He could hear through it too. Wonder if he could speak through it.
"No, actually there's a one-way seal in place."
Kurama didn't have enough room to leap into the air. He settled for twitching a lot. One of the monkeys had snuck in here? And it was NOT his host?
"You look a lot smaller in here," said Hiruzen Sarutobi.
"Come into my cage and say that," growled Kurama.
"I think not," answered the Hokage. "Just wanted to confirm some things I'd been told. You don't have any other pressing business, do you?"
Kurama growled and snarled, but then finally settled down. "I seem to have an opening in my busy schedule. Get it over with quickly."
Orochimaru stood across the rooftop, facing his old teacher. "Excuse me. What did you say?"
"I said you cannot win, Orochimaru. If I strike you down, you die here. If I should fall - I will become more than you can possibly imagine."
"You have no secrets I do not already possess," said Orochimaru. "Is that the best bluff you could come up with?"
"No bluff," said the Hokage. "Four pillar seal with internal barriers to protect your minions? Fire-based though. Trying for an ironic twist there?"
"I thought you'd appreciate that," admitted Orochimaru.
"Oh, I do," said the Hokage. "Little artistic gestures were always one of your redeeming features."
"Well, as pleasant as this has been," said Orochimaru before he launched himself.
"Ninja Art: Tile Shuriken!"
"Too easy! Shadow Snake!"
Naruto raced along, in pursuit of Gaara. He had to wonder what else was happening though.
For years the old man had told him that when things looked its worst, new possibilities would be opened to them both. Years ago there had come the sealed book, and it was a book and not a traditional scroll, that the old man had given him one day. It would open "at the right time" - but Naruto had never been given an exact time.
When they'd gotten to the tower and the Hokage had seen the seal on Sasuke's shoulder - that had been the first time that Naruto had heard something to indicate a WHEN. And that had been a pretty cryptic comment about "how quickly time moves when we want it to slow instead" and the only answer Naruto had been able to get to questions about that was that THAT time was fast approaching.
Well, he'd been waiting for years for it - but he sure hadn't expected the village to be invaded!
"Kit. You better get a move on."
Naruto twitched. The furball in his gut didn't talk very often, but when your Hokage tells you to try and be polite even if you didn't like each other much - you listen.
"I'm going as fast as I can," said Naruto.
"What do you mean?" asked Shikamaru.
"Uhm, mental message jutsu-thingie," explained Naruto absently. "Trying to get a lock on Gaara."
"Never would have figured you for a sensor back in the Academy," protested Shikamaru.
"Recent development, not very practiced," responded Naruto. "Six enemy nin coming up fast behind us."
"Well, that went easier than I expected," said Orochimaru. "But where did the body go?"
"What-" said the First Hokage before there was an explosion of ash and the corpse that had been used to summon him slid to the roof.
"What? Who did that?" asked Orochimaru, looking around.
"Orochimaru, you fool," said the Second Hokage before he exploded into ash as well.
"I didn't see an attack," said Orochimaru, looking around.
Four screams, one from each corner of the barrier. The same barrier that went from barely visible red to opaque. Then shifting quickly to yellow in color.
"Okay, that's bad," mused Orochimaru, still not really alarmed. More curious than anything. "In order to do that the barrier would have to be-"
The barrier was ripped open and the ghostly gigantic form of the Third Hokage looked in on him.
Orochimaru gawped for a moment, which might have been a bit out-of-character but this situation certainly warranted it. "YOU GOTTA BE FREAKING KIDDING ME!"
"You are not welcome here," said the Third. "Begone."
"WHAT?!" said Orochimaru, briefly twisting around as he was suddenly in the air over one of his bases. One of his bases in Grass. About ten kilometers over his base.
As he fell, he decided he was going to HAVE to research a flight jutsu.
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(Posted Sat, 23 May 2015 16:36)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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