The Changing of The Guard
A ?one-shot? By Kuno-Baby
A lot of things can happen in the half-second it takes to blink. A pin could fall from an outstretched hand to the ground. A light could flash on and off. A hand could wave, a foot could step. A gun could fire. A lot of things can happen in that instant when the eyes are at their lowest.
A lot of things can happen in the thirty seconds it takes for the two to change places, from alert to at rest, from at rest to alert. The sending of a message, perhaps, or walking down a dark street quietly but quickly. A lot of things can happen in the time it takes the guard to end his shift and another to take his place. It takes the same amount of time as trying on a new hat, or getting from the bedroom door to safely tucked in to sleep.
A lot of things can happen in the half an hour it takes for the guard to get bored. A determined jogger could get all the way around the Village Hidden in the Leaf. A complicated spell could be wrought. A hot bath could cool. Supplies could be gathered for a long mission where hunting is expected to be good. A person could depart and not be seen even from the top of the Hokage monument. A fight could be fought. A spy could be in and out.
A lot of things can happen in the six hours before the guard is relieved. A night's sleep could be inadequately had. An arrow could be fired into the air and located in the woods. A shop could be run, a class begun and completed, a long training session wisely used. A lot of things can happen as the guard keeps watch. An invasion force can be organized, armed, and held just out of sight, waiting for the guard to be at his least attentive.
A lot of things can happen in the hours it took the Chuunin Third Exam to run its course. Destiny could be changed. The underdog could win a fight no one expected him to survive. The sun could rise and set. A lot of things can happen before the time it takes for a guard to get bored and for just one second and turn around to watch the fights.
An old man, past his prime and yet still respected, could die in the time it takes for the Chuunin Exams to end. He could perish in the six hours that it takes the guard to come and go. He could pass away in the half an hour it took for the Guard to sigh at his job. But what brought down Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, was the blink of an eye it took for Orochimaru to send the Kusanagi through his chest, the blink in which Sarutobi failed to dispel the first and second summoning jutsu that Orochimaru had unleashed upon Konoha.
A lot of things can happen for so little a stretch of time. Destiny can change. Destiny has been
changed. In the blink of an eye, evil has been vanquished, and in another eye's-blink, evil has won.
In this blink of an eye, one thing happened that never did before. In this blink of the Shinigami's eye, the image soaring over Konoha of the Kyuubi caught a man in the middle of intense concentration. A man who had blinked before, now held his eyes open to the demonic light flashing through the fight between a transformed Gamabunta and a released Shukaku.
In this blink of the eye, Orochimaru lost, sealed into the dying body of the Sandaime. In this half an hour, the Sound Four slunk back to their home village. In these six hours, the Village Hidden in the Sound collapsed. By the end of this day, Konoha was once again allied with the Sand, Jiraiya had refused ascension to the position of Hokage, and a half of a thousand missing-nin from all over the known world but previously attached to the Rice Country scattered again onto an unsuspecting world but especially onto the Fire Country.
Things turned out differently in this blink of the eye.
(end chapter)
AN: Perhaps a one-shot, but set so I can expand if I so desire. Corny, but what can you do (at least it isn't how Results started)?