"Oh. I guess I didn't exactly specify this was to be retroactive," realized Toltiir.
It had only rewound as far as Sakura hitting Naruto.
"Hand it over, Naruto," said Sakura, stepping forward and grabbing the tome on fuuinjutsu. "You're so pathetic, you're going to mess something up!"
Naruto had seen where and how she'd been looking and came to a correct conclusion. "It's my book damnit! You're not giving it to Sasuke!"
Sakura saw a way to benefit Sasuke and get closer to him and was NOT going to back down. "Let go before you do something lame!"
Sasuke watched the two squabbling over the book before deciding that they were both morons. Why was he saddled with two anchors holding him back? They would only slow his progress.
"I SAID LET GO!" said Sakura, using the hand not tugging at the book to punch Naruto in the face.
Sasuke saw it, the world going in slow motion for a moment. It was almost as if his Sharingan had activated in fact. He saw the tumbling ball of blood and spittle from Naruto's face as the boy fell backwards. He saw the triumphant look on Sakura's face as she pulled the book closer. He saw the blood-spit glob hit a section of the fuuinjutsu. He saw the purple fire racing through the fuuinjutsu design from that point of impact.
"Ugh!" went Naruto as he hit the ground.
"Yes!" proclaimed Sakura, raising the book high.
"Oh shit," uncharacteristically said Sasuke.
The book on fuuinjutsu exploded. The world dissolved in purple fire.
They were elsewhere. They were elsewhere and it HURT.
The angles - there were too many angles and the light was WRONG and the sounds were not sounds and his brother was there turning away from him with tears tracking his cheeks. He was born and he was eleven and he was six and he was all of the various Sasuke at once.
Sasuke turned his attention entirely towards a gout of flame. Focus on it. Only on it. Ignore everything else. A meditation exercise and it seemed to help.
And then he WAS the flame.
She smelled yellow and saw bitter and heard the heartbeat of the world and spotted the Seal on Naruto's spine near the third thoracic and how it was designed to destroy his intellect. She plucked at it, drawing it off like pulling a tic off. It trailed ink and malice as it came off and bounced along the ground/not ground, and then Naruto brought a foot down and crushed it.
Naruto asked her something but his words turned into yellow birds that spiraled around her and flew off.
Time. Time was a place. You could look there and see that Naruto was being born to some redheaded woman and ... THE FOURTH HOKAGE?!
Something cracked in the surface they hovered over/stood on and speared into her. Pouring in, she could feel her body trying to adapt to the substance/radiation/concept and KNEW that it would result in her exploding in less than two minutes.
She could see it. There she was in one thousand ninety four of two thousand five hundred and sixty seven futures with her body bursting into nearly that many fragments - all of which were screaming.
She turned to Sasuke, and saw him burning.
As soon as Sakura had plucked that Thing off of him, he could suddenly think. He saw what was going on around him and gently grasped Sakura's hand. After a moment he took Sasuke's hand despite the fire/not-fire. He could see around him and he Understood. It was something to ponder on cold lonely moments when they were back, but for now they had to survive.
Holding tight to their hands, he gently pulled them forward and out of the array.
Once out of that, the array collapsed. They were back in the classroom. But right now a nap sounded good.
They had been gone for two hours, with a scorched fuuinjutsu circle in the wrecked classroom the main clue as to what had happened.
Inoichi Yamanaka sat down, poured himself a tall drink, and downed it.
The Hokage raised an eyebrow. "That bad?"
Inoichi considered the bottle again. "You remember the experiment with summoning where the process was paused in that instant between disappearance and reappearance?"
"Yes, the notes on that incident were written during the time of the Second Hokage," said Hiruzen Sarutobi, tapping his Hokage hat as he tried to remember the details. "The person in question went mad as I recall, died after three days. Physically mutated as well. The Yamanaka who did the mind-probe didn't go very deep but apparently required some time off. And was never completely right afterwards."
"We've improved techniques since then," said Inoichi. "They went there."
"To the Space Between?" asked Hiruzen. "Then they've gone mad?"
"No, Naruto brought them back in time," said Inoichi. "However, that experience might have some repercussions."
Three beds, three genin candidates, three groans when he'd entered the room and turned the lights on.
Kakashi knew his little speech and the mind-game he played on them. He went with it, that the little genin had apparently gotten into mischief while he was late merely indicated that he needed to fail this team as well.
"And so you shouldn't eat anything prior to the little exercise," said Kakashi. "Remember. 0600 exactly."
"Don't think I could eat anything anyway," complained Sakura. "I feel... heavy."
"I suppose a ninja has to be able to perform even if we're half-dead," said Naruto, sounding somewhat philosophical.
Kakashi nodded at him. "Anything less than all-the-way dead means you might have to do a mission. If you ARE all-the-way dead, you might get a pass. Though there are some commanders who would still require you to finish the mission."
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(Posted Mon, 20 Apr 2015 00:10)
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