Darkness engulfed me. It was all I could see. The coldness it brought was all that I could feel. I looked around, trying to find some light. For a dream, it sure was strange. That was what it was, right? I had walked into my bedroom and fallen onto my bed. What else could this be? But in my dreams, I didn't have as much control as I did now.
"Hello!" I called, my voice echoing in the emptiness. My dark eyes darted around, annoyance growing within me when I still didn't see anything. "Hello!" Once again, my call was not answered. I began to walk in no particular direction, unsure if I'd crash into anything. To help prevent that, I waved my hands in front of me, hoping they'd feel something before I slammed into it.
This way, a voice whispered in my head. Follow my voice.
I jerked in surprise. I swirled around, only slightly surprise when I saw nothing. What the heck? I'd heard a voice in my head. Was I going crazy? "It's just a dream, Braelyn. It's just a dream," I reminded myself.
This way. This time when the voice spoke, I jerked again. This time, however, I hadn't done it. Instead something had pulled me in that direction. I looked in that direction. Once again reminding myself this was a dream, I began a slow walk. I didn't run into anything, nor did I see any light. It was still pitch black. My eyes narrowed as I tried to will them to adjust, but they never would.
After what felt like hours of wondering, I stopped with a sigh. I ran a hand through my hair, looking around for some kind of possible escape. I was starting to wonder if this was a dream or a nightmare meant to bore me into being afraid. "Come on, subconscious. This isn't funny. Is this saying that my subconscious is black since dreams are, like, supposed to show you your, well, subconscious?"
Forward, the voice said, making a reappearance. Once again I was jerked forward. Only this time my foot didn't hit solid ground. Instead it went straight down. I screamed, the rest of my body following that foot. I more or less freefell through the darkness, my heart climbing into my throat as I screamed. "Help! Help! HELP!"
Nobody did. Nor, I found out moments later, did anyone need to. A few moments later I slammed into something solid. I expected pain, but instead it seemed as if I stopped a moment before I touched the solid surface and then fell the rest of the way. I crumbled to the ground, my body trembling.
"Welcome, Braelyn," the voice from before said. Only now it wasn't in my head. Now it was on the outside.
The darkness around me started to recede, turning into light that was too bright for eyes that had adjusted to darkness. I blinked rapidly, forcing my eyes to readjust. A white floor was under me, the walls just like it. A pure white room. For some reason, I felt like I was in a story. A cliché story at that. I examined the rest of the room. And it was then I realized I wasn't alone. There were three people in the room with me. Two were men in brown cloaks that stopped at their thighs. They had black pants covering their under half. Both of them were male, one with military style black hair and another with slightly long and curly red hair. Only it wasn't red as in orange. It was red as in blood red. Another similarity between them was that they both had bright blue eyes.
The last person seemed slightly familiar even if I couldn't place where I'd seen him. He had spiky black hair, slightly pale skin, and wore nothing more than a white robe. The thing that held my attention, however, was his obsidian eyes. The red hair was strange enough, but a person could do that with hair dye. A person having obsidian eyes, however, was stranger. I didn't believe people had contacts for that.
Braelyn, this is just a dream, I reminded myself. It was hard to keep that in mind since it seemed so much like real life. I could think so much as if I was in control it was easy to forget.
"I'm sure that you're confused by all of this." The one who spoke was the black haired male, his voice giving away that he'd been the one to speak only seconds ago.
"This is a dream," I stated. "It doesn't matter if I'm confused or not."
"A dream?" the red haired one asked. "The girl thinks she's dreaming, Matsuro."
The black haired one, Matsuro, cocked his head to the side as he watched me. "I told you before, Kado. The newer generation doesn't know of their….. gift because the first few generations deciding not to tell them."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded. I glanced between the two men, my eyes eventually returning to the silent boy. He examined me, as if he saw me as a science experiment. I glared at him for the look, but after a moment my gaze returned to the men. "What gift?"
"This is a dream? Why does it matter?" Kado asked, raising a thin red eyebrow.
I glared at him. Jeez, I was glaring a lot for a dream. I forced the glare away, instead looking at Matsuro. "What gift are you talking about?" I questioned, wondering if his response would be better than his companion's.
"The gift of the Hosuto," Matsuro replied. "You vanished from the shinobi world to live in one more peaceful, but in doing so, you made a promise."
I shook my head. "Your story is the craziest one I've dreamed up." What made me so sure? I recognized the word he'd used. It was a word they used in a TV show my brother watched called Naruto. I enjoyed watching it, too, but I rarely got to since I was usually busy on Saturday nights.
Kado smiled, looking very smug about having information that I didn't know. The only problem was I found him crazy for that information. From the way he looked, though, I should have wanted to hear this and should have believed it one hundred percent.
"You guys are totally and completely insane." What was with this dream? That's what it was. There was nothing else it could be. So why did I feel like it wasn't? I shook the thought away.
"I would have to agree at times," a new voice spoke. I turned in a way that allowed me to see both the three males and a new person that I'd missed in my previous examination of the room, my attention too focused on those in front of me. She had dark red hair (also red instead of orange), the bright blue as the others, and the same clothes as them. She cocked her head as she looked at me, making me feel like a puzzle rather than a human being. "You're strange, Braelyn Nickelson," she said. "You're aura is…." She paused, probing her mind for the right word. "It's purer and brighter than the others."
"Isn't that why you chose her, Komichi?" Matsuro asked. "You believed she had a great….." Like the woman, he paused, a small smile on his face when he continued. "You said you think she has a great path before her."
Komichi rolled her eyes for whatever reason. "I know what I said. And I still believe that is true. She is the best option we have for this particular wish."
"Wish?" I asked, my eyes narrowing in confusion. This is just a dream! I reminded myself, annoyed at how easily I tended to forget that.
"This is not a dream, Miss Nickelson." Komichi's words made me flinch. Had she just- "Read your mind? Yes, Miss Nickelson. That's exactly what I just did."
I'm not sure exactly how my face looked, but it made Kado double over laughing. "Oh man, we need mirrors in here," he said.
A venom filled glare shut up Kado. "Sorry about my brother. He's a bit more childish than us two." Kado grinned, not trying in the least to deny her words. "But I was telling the truth before. This isn't a dream. You may think it is, but if it was, could you feel this." I yelped as she suddenly appeared beside me, squeezing my arm so hard I feared she was trying to break it. "If this was a dream, would you feel any pain?"
"No," I said through gritted teeth, trying to hold back a scream.
"Let go of her, Komichi. You're hurting her," Kado said, his eyes narrowed. "She doesn't have any chakra, remember? That hurts her a lot more than it would someone with chakra."
Chakra? Yeah, they were definitely talking about Naruto. If this wasn't a dream, had I been abducted? Then how did the beginning of the dream make any sense?
"We didn't abduct you, Miss Nickelson." Following what Kado had told him to do, she released my arm. "Your body is still in your bedroom, sleeping the night away. Right now you're your soul form. The darkness from before was you roaming the spot between the dimensions. That is where you are now, but now you are in the light rather than the darkness."
"There's a very small amount of light, then," I grumbled, rubbing my hurt arm. "And the people in it aren't too nice either."
Kado actually looked hurt from that. "You don't think that I'm nice?" he asked, his lip sticking out in a pout. The other two seemed as if they were in their mid thirties, but Kado looked no older than twenty-four. Even though he was younger, the pouty face looked funny on him because of how old he was.
I smiled slightly at him. "No, you're really nice," I said slowly, slightly uncomfortable with assuring him when I barely knew him.
He smiled, assured despite how slowly I'd spoke. Matsuro rolled his eyes, his eyes narrowing suddenly. "Komichi, we need to hurry up. It's nearly seven in the morning in her dimension."
Komichi sighed, glancing at the black haired boy. He'd remained silent through the entire thing, a sad look replacing his earlier one. It almost seemed apologetic. When he felt Komichi's gaze, though, his obsidian eyes moved to her.
"I'd like you to explain it to her in her dimension. I will wait to bind you as her Kage, but you will be there as a spirit. Tell her both the past and what will happen to her in two days."
"Two days? What do you mean? What's going to happen?" I demanded, glaring at Komichi and the other males when they didn't tell me anything. "Answer me!"
"That will be explained to you by this young boy, as we just said," Matsuro said.
"We would try to explain more, but we can't because it would be dangerous if your body woke up while you were still here. Sorry it took us so much time to get you to the light of the in between dimension." Yeah, I was starting to think Kado was the nice one of the bunch.
"Who is he?" I asked, glaring at the boy. He looked familiar, but I couldn't place where I'd seen him. Either way, I didn't like the situation. He could be some long lost cousin and I wouldn't like what was going on.
"This, Braelyn, is Obito Uchiha."