Of course, now she and Team 7 were standing on the end of a corridor. Which was to say the corridor came to an abrupt stop with only stepping stones going on in a line thereafter.
The REAL problem was that the stones weren't supported by anything and below them was an abyss.
"How deep is that?" asked Sakura, who had crawled out to peek her head over the edge and look down. She'd hoped to see a clue. Instead she was seeing planets and moons and stars and what looked like a comet over there.
"Uhm, I can't really tell," said Hinata. "It isn't a genjutsu. On the other hand, none of this is real. Mostly."
"What do you mean?" asked Sakura.
Hinata fidgeted briefly. "My clan tutors spoke about summons. About fuuinjutsu. About theories."
"Okay," said Sakura as she skootched back from the abyss. "You're saying that this isn't real though?"
"Using the Byakugan I can tell that these are just references our minds come up with," said Hinata, finding some solace in reciting technical matters. It was just like being tested by those same tutors that way. "The walls are a construct. So are those stones."
"Is that an archway up there?" asked Sasuke, standing near the edge and peering off into the distance. Why debate over whether the wall was really a wall? It acted like a wall and that was good enough, wasn't it?
Oddly enough, it was Naruto who combined those attitudes. "So, these walls are walls. Just not what they look like. So how about that archway-thingie?"
"Byakugan," said Hinata after going through the hand-signs again. She just maintained that for a few seconds before dropping it. "Sorry. I can't keep that up. I think it's an exit."
"About time," said Sasuke, leaping to the first stone and then to the next. He had vengeance to prepare for. Wandering around lost wasn't going to help.
"Wait! Sasuke!" yelled Sakura, going back a few paces, then sprinting and leaping.
"Why do you think it's an exit?" asked Naruto.
"Because it looks like the emergency exit door at the Academy," said Hinata before realizing how close Naruto was and freezing up.
"Oh, I get it, symbols!" Naruto nodded. "That's... You okay?"
"F-f-f-f-fine," stuttered Hinata.
"Somebody HELP ME UP!" demanded Sakura as she hung from her fingertips over the abyss, looking down into what looked like deep space. She'd missed a stepping stone by THAT much. Able to grab it on the way down. And she did NOT want to look down again.
"Ah! Sakura-chan!" yelped Naruto as he ran forward.
"It IS the emergency exit on the first floor of the Academy," noted Naruto. "Even has that scratch where I disarmed the alarm. This one's still disarmed but-"
"You did what?" demanded Sakura.
"Uhm, nothing," said Naruto.
"Symbols, huh, what does it look like beyond that?" asked Sasuke curiously.
"It's a pattern of energy, same as the walls, eep!" Hinata shrunk in on herself as everyone focussed their attention on her.
"So, go through?" asked Sakura.
"Hell yeah!" declared Naruto. "Not going through that jumping from stone to stone thing again."
"Agreed," said Sakura, who hadn't realized that both Naruto and Sasuke could leap better than she did. Hinata needing help was one thing, but she was the top kunoichi of the year. Hanging over that gap had been kind of out of her league.
"Hn," said Sasuke, checking and then opening the door. Fresh air and bright light poured in as Sasuke sidled around the opening.
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(Posted Sat, 29 Nov 2014 16:04)
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