False Shadows

Chapter Three

Training Blues

How would you like to learn to walk up a tree?

For a moment I stared blankly at Asuma. It was the kind of question that garnered an obviously dubious reaction—I mean, in my world, that sort of question automatically became a joke, a sort of .how'd you like to see pigs fly? moment you'd sooner dismiss than entertain as a legitimate inquiry. Heck, even in this world people responded to it a bit incredulously at first. However, this world I'd entered into was not my world, and here a little thing like gravity didn't seem to keep people from doing what they'd like to.

For a moment I hesitated. From what I could remember of the episode where Team 7 learned this same trick, it wasn't exactly an easy feat—somehow I expected my brain with its rationality and propensity for doubting the altogether possible in this world would prove a big barrier to the process. Not to mention I had barely any knowledge of how to control my chakra points—a fact that infinitely sucked considering the task that lay ahead of me. This was the key to all jutsu, in Kakashi's mind, the hardest task of focusing and maintaining chakra flow one could expect to come across.

Finally I said, "I'm up for trying, but isn't this… kind of an advanced technique for me? I don't even have a foundation of guessing at the balance between physical and spiritual chakra, let alone honing it as precisely as I'll need to be able to do to pull this off."

Asuma's thick brows rose slightly over his eyes. "You seem to know a lot about the process for someone who can't even guess at how to do it."

I shrugged. "Yeah, well, knowledge isn't exactly understanding until you can transfer it into a given situation."

The older shinobi nodded. "It's a very difficult technique for beginners, true. Most genin don't work at the finer points of chakra control until later on in their training, but from what I've been told, you being here is largely about helping you control your chakra. The going may be rough at first, but it's what we need to keep focused on."

With a sigh, I nodded and said, "That makes sense. Teach away, Asuma-sensei."

Though I was already somewhat familiar with the two basic types of chakra and their interacting elements, Asuma still brought me through the whole lecture to make sure I understood the theory. That much my mind grasped quickly, as it was wont to do. How I would fare putting knowledge into practice I couldn't even begin to guess at. Maybe I'd wind up catching on quickly, like Sakura, but somehow I doubted it.

Turns out, pooling chakra to certain points of your body—an essential part of the tree-walking process—is not that easy. At least not for me. I spent what felt like hours trying to just move the pools a figurative inch, and while they were fluid enough they didn't ever seem to want to move en masse. For the most part I could move through them, direct them here and there, but reaching the soles of my feet seemed like trying to dig my way to China. From this world, no less.

"Crap dangit," I muttered as I made the hand sign to focus my chakra. Instead of channeling towards my feet it seemed to want to focus somewhere in my arms and little tendrils of black began flickering at the edges of my skin. My hands dropped to my sides and I shook them back and forth a few times to get rid of the tingling sensation there. Glancing to my right, I watched as Asuma-sensei instructed the others for awhile—he'd left me to my own devices once it had become apparent I wouldn't be getting chakra into my feet anytime soon. Asuma sparred with Ino while Choji and Shikamaru practiced throwing kunai at a series of targets. Eventually they departed for a few hours to complete a mission, leaving me alone in the training area.

Glancing up at the tree in front of me, I rolled a coil of hair between my fingertips and chewed on the inside of my lip as I thought about the seemingly monumental task before me. Well, I thought. Best to throw myself at the problem instead of pander about.

My brows pushed down over my eyes as I concentrated on the pools of chakra, trying to shift them towards my feet, attempting to arrange the pools in a way that made sense of the different energies I felt inside me. Then I took off towards the tree, freed in a way by the lack of an audience, and threw myself up at it at an angle so that my feet could latch onto the sturdy trunk.

As soon as my feet hit the bark a jolt ricocheted through my shinbones and I dropped onto my back so hard the breath got knocked right out of me. Coughing feebly, I rolled onto my stomach and rested my forehead against the grass and dirt while I tried to refill my suddenly emptied lungs.

"This," I panted, letting the familiar shapes of English words form on my lips, "is impossible." My head jerked up and I glared at the tree in front of me. Gravity seemed less like a given now and more like chains weighing me down at the ankles. Why did this have to be so difficult?

Stubbornly I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the shaking in my limbs and the ache in my chest. For all my faults, I was no quitter, especially when someone I admired was interested in my success. I wanted to prove to Asuma-sensei that I could at least do this much. The finer points of ninja life were likely lost to me, but this much should be a given.

After about five failed attempts at latching myself onto the tree, I decided to return my focus onto properly channeling my chakra into my feet. That was likely the source of my problems. Each attempt to get those pools moving seemed doomed to result in failure, though, and as the minutes and hours ticked by, I had little to show for my efforts.

I let out a ragged, exhausted breath and dropped into a crouch, balancing my elbows on my knees and bowing my head between them while I regained my breath. I began to understand what it was like to get dangerously low on chakra. The pools were not quite as flexible, not as present, and as I tried to locate them they seemed more elusive than they'd been so far.

I heard my name and looked up to see Asuma-sensei approaching me, followed closely by his genin team. He said something and gave me an inquisitive look. For a moment I thought my brain had become scrambled somehow—it sounded to me like he was speaking gibberish—and then I realized that the charka pool that had seemed to help me understand their language was so depleted, I could no longer comprehend their words at all.

"Crap," I muttered in English. Rubbing the back of my neck, I pointed to my ears and shook my head. "I can't understand you. Give me a minute." Or a few hours.

Of course he couldn't understand me, either, and Asuma looked concerned as he waited for me to say something that made sense. The rest of his team huddled around us and added their worried words into the jumble, but while my perceptive mind heard the individual sounds and distinguished the words pretty well (it helped that I'd studied a bit of the three major Asian languages, so I was familiar with their sound systems), I couldn't come up with any meaning behind the various syllable clusters.

Bending forward a bit I began tracing with my finger into the dirt. I drew a stick figure and the image of the chakra pools that I recalled from the episode where Team 7 had learned to do the very thing I was attempting and miserably failing at. Then I drew an "x" over the pool and added a speech bubble next to it, which I also crossed out.

Asuma and Shikamura said something to each other, and I thought they seemed like they understood what was going on a bit, at least enough to know that continuing to pester me with words wouldn't produce any viable results. I sighed heavily and wished I'd proven less of a failure on my first day of training, but I suppose that was to be expected. Chakra and jutsu were like language to these people—learned innately, instinctively, and then studied more in depth to gain an academic understanding. Learning how to utilize and balance my chakra was like learning a language later in life—it was possible, but difficult, since I largely needed to start with the academic understanding that made little sense to someone with no foundation in the basics.

When it seemed they understood there would be no communicating with me for the time being, Shikamaru held out his hand and helped me back to my feet. Then Asuma led us away from the training field—I had no idea where we were going, but I followed dutifully.

When we reentered the village, we passed quite a few villagers who seemed either curious or dubious about me. It seemed word had spread—not that this was a surprise to me. Growing up in a small town in Minnesota made you comfortable with the speed at which rumors spread, if not altogether accepting of their content. People in my high school hadn't exactly been discerning about the rumors they'd spread concerning me, the chief one I recalled being that I was a lesbian. A rather perplexing conclusion to make considering that back then I probably would have chewed their heads off (figuratively) just debating the issue.

Ah, the more opinionated days of youth. I could not say I was sad to see them past, for the most part. Not that I was scot-free yet. Technically speaking I was still a kid. At least until I turned eighteen in a handful of months. I wondered if the years and months were marked differently in the Naruto universe. I couldn't remember reading anything about that or encountering it in the show.

As it turns out, Asuma was treating us to dinner at one of those grill places that seemed synonymous with his team's extracurricular activities. I slid into one of the booths compliantly enough, and as I settled in I found my chakra seemed to be replenished enough for me to understand what I heard. However, I found that every time I tried to talk I used up a bit more than was good for me, so I remained quiet and tried to really listen and learn the language for myself. It probably wouldn't be practical for me to rely on chakra to translate for me the rest of my time here in the Naruto universe—however long that would be. Best to get immerse myself as much as possible. Not a difficult thing to do with my chakra at an all-time low.

"I wonder what's wrong with her?" Ino didn't look at me when she spoke. She poked at some edamame left on her plate—I don't think she tended to eat much of anything at all. Typical.

The beef was really delicious, with some flavors that I recognized from my experience with different Asian foods. That being said, I wasn't sure I could pinpoint why the taste was familiar. Chances were it was Japanese, but I thought it lined up with my brief foray into Thai food that had ended with an upset stomach and a distrust of Asian cuisine's definition of "mild." Lucky for me, I'd eaten enough Korean food over the past year or so to have overcome my aversion to spicy food, or I'd probably be picking at green beans sulkily with Ino.

"Ibiki said she has a bit of a language barrier in place," Asuma explained, and by the guarded look on his face I interpreted his words to mean Ibiki had also told him about the dimensional barrier. Well, that was good. At least he wouldn't be completely puzzled by my behavior, which I imagined was pretty bizarre to those around me.

"She didn't seem to have any problems before," Shikamaru pointed out.

"I think she uses her chakra to translate both what she hears and what she says," Asuma said. "That seems to be the best explanation from what I've observed her doing so far." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he took a puff of his cigarette.

An interesting situation. Though Asuma didn't speak the words, I heard them in my head like an echo. Ah, that mind reading thing was back, was it? Somehow the… connection seemed weak. I could barely hear even those three words, and almost at once there was nothing more, though I could tell his thoughts were still working on the problem that was me while he turned some slices of beef over on the grill.

"Well," Shikamaru said matter-of-factly, "it seems like she's a hard worker. I didn't expect her to last as long as she did, considering the shape she's in." He looked me up and down and then took another bite of beef.

"We shouldn't talk about her just because she can't understand us," Choji muttered. The look on his face could only be described as a pout, and the fact that he sulked for my benefit made me feel grateful. Still, I wasn't really as touchy as he was about my weight. I'd given up caring what people thought about me at some point in the last year. I guess it just took up too much energy to care about those things too deeply. That's how I reasoned it out, in any case.

"I wonder how old she is," Ino said as she followed Shikamaru's lead and examined me through skeptical eyes. "She looks pretty young."

"Ibiki said she's seventeen," Asuma responded as he placed a few slices of cooked meat onto my plate. I smiled at him and picked one of them up with my chopsticks, which I held with precision, if not style.

"Wow," Choji said with wide eyes. "She's a lot older than us, isn't she?"

"Not that much older," Shikamaru replied dryly.

I wondered if I should tell them I could understand them again. As I chewed, I let the flavors settle in my mouth and pool for a few seconds before I swallowed. Finally I pinched another slice of beef between the tips of my chopsticks and said, "I'll be eighteen in about four months."

They stared at me for a moment and then Asuma smiled and patted my shoulder. "I'm glad you're feeling better. You had us worried for awhile."

With a shrug, I said, "I think I just used up too much chakra trying to climb that gosh darn tree." Exasperatingly, I could probably have climbed it more easily using my own two hands, but my redneck skills weren't what this training was meant to test and shape.

"You'll get a better handle on how much you can afford to lose soon, I'm sure," Asuma said with an encouraging grin. Though I supposed I was closer in age to the genin, I felt more comfortable with Asuma. Besides Shikamaru, he was really the only person present who had any intellectual maturity, and since Shika was pretty emotionally stunted at this point, that left my sensei as pretty much the only person I could relate to at the moment. Surprising how important relating felt now that strangers in a strange land ruled by strange magic—or chakra, as the case may be—surrounded me.

"Chakra is difficult to figure out at first," Ino agreed. I was surprised she offered even that small amount of consolation. Tipping my head to one side, I regarded her with an unreadable expression on my face, wondering if I'd prejudged her before really getting to know this Ino. Sure, this whole world was made up of characters and events that I knew well, but that didn't necessarily mean things would go exactly as they did in the manga. I'd seen enough of those "dropped into alternate dimensions or the distant past" shows to know that even one person screwing with events and people could drastically alter the course of destiny.

Such thinking was kind of melodramatic, sure, but the principle seemed sound enough to warrant caution on my part. I couldn't take anything for granted—which, I thought, could mean that I had an obligation to warn the Leaf Village about the imminent attack. What would I change, I wondered, by giving them that glimpse into Orochimaru's plans? Fear and worry tightened my gut, and I put my chopsticks down, having effectively lost my appetite.

I walked home with Choji after dinner, comfortable enough in the silence that had settled between us. He was the same age as my youngest brothers, and I felt kind of sisterly towards him for that reason. Also, I understood what it was like to be bullied based on how you looked. Choji was sweet, kindhearted, and he deserved better than what most people gave him. Still, I knew that he could look forward to the end of his present troubles. Assuming my presence here didn't mess things up catastrophically.

"Are you feeling okay?" Choji asked me.

"Hmm?" I turned to look at him.

"You look… I don't know," the genin said sheepishly as he shrugged his shoulders. "Kind of uncomfortable?" he guessed.

The word seemed as apt as any to describe how I felt with my situation at large, but currently I was enough resigned to current events to truthfully say, "I'm fine. Just tired, I think. And taking it all in. It's kind of new to me." Or really, really new to me.

"What was life like for you before?" Choji asked.

I considered the question with my head slightly tipped to one side, a thoughtful expression on my face. "Uneventful, I guess," I said at last. "I was a student of literature in my first semester of college. That's what my life revolved around. The people around me are nice, but they're not like my old friends." The thought of old friends made me worry again about what had happened to Becky and Rachel and Ashley. Were they all right? Had they woken up in this world as well, or were they safe and sound in our world.

Or worse?

I had to discard that thought before my mind could lead me into Despairland, population of one. Whatever had brought me here, I couldn't afford to be careless and distracted. I needed to keep on my toes, or else someone was going to try to use me to hurt the Leaf Village, and that was the last thing I wanted to come out of this mess.

"What were your old friends like?" Choji inquired.

"Loud," I laughed. "But fun. They were more like sisters than normal friends. Even when we were apart for months at a time, all it took was throwing us together in a room again to fall back into our old ways." A soft smile, ghost-like, formed at the corner of my mouth. "I guess you could say they're one-of-a-kind friends."

"You must miss them," Choji said.

Glancing away at the mountain cliffs ahead of us, I sighed. "Yeah." Certainly it felt like I'd been away from them a lot longer than I actually had. Had it only been a day? Maybe I'd been in that dark expanse for longer, drifting between the worlds. It was hard for me to say for certain.

"If you ever need a friend, you can talk to me," he said with a shy smile.

I smiled back. "Thanks, Choji. I appreciate it."

We got back to his house just as his parents were finishing their dinner. Mrs. Akimichi didn't seem surprised we'd already eaten, though she still tried to get us to eat more. I politely declined—even if I'd been able to stuff my belly any fuller, I hadn't quite gotten over that sick feeling yet.

After a quick shower I put on the nightgown Mrs. Akimichi had given me and curled up on my mat to sleep. I was bone tired, and it didn't take me long to drift off.

I sat on the edge of a steep cliff with my feet dangling into the open air. A part of me knew this was a dream—I was kind of self aware like that, especially when I showed up as a character featured in my often dramatic and eventful reveries. Far below me, I could see my world, the bright lights of Minneapolis sprawled out as if I were staring down from a plane window. Behind me I could see another steep drop off and the Leaf Village below it, quieter and darker than the city from my own world by far.

"I should probably go back home," I said out loud as I stared down at the blazing lights and the cars inching along like fireflies against the ink black highways. Still, even with my feet pointed towards home, I felt as if something pulled me back, back towards the village with its silence and its foreboding. Was I crazy? I didn't belong there. Not by a long shot.

"Elli!"

The voice was familiar—higher pitched, yet still spoken in a deeper inflection. Becky! I looked over my shoulder and thought I saw three lights hovering outside the village. Jumping to my feet, I ran in that direction, feeling my heart pound in my chest as I went.

"I'm coming!" I called as I raced into the darkness.

A part of me knew this wasn't just a dream.

Without hesitation, I leaped from the edge of the cliff. The wind roared in my ears as I soared down towards the rooftops. Those pools of chakra, more fluid now that I'd rested, came to my defense and helped me to land lightly on my feet before propelling myself forward, flying from rooftop to rooftop like a character in a Chinese action flick.

As I neared the edge of the village, I thought I heard a soft hissing sound. My feet scuffed into the dirt as I left the rooftops in favor of the worn, dusty road, and I slid to a stop just as a white-skinned figure appeared before me.

Sweat beaded my brow as I panted and stared, my eyes wide.

"Orochimaru," I whispered.

He smiled that creepy, predatory smile of his. "To get to your friends, you'll have to go through me," he said.

Though my heart hammered in my chest like it sought to escape from my ribcage, I swallowed my fear and clenched my fists at my sides as my chin shot up in defiance.

"Fine," I spat. "Bring it."

Suddenly, a great many shadows began appearing from the edge of the woods. Familiar and unfamiliar faces surrounded me, and in the darkness I also saw a pair of golden eyes as a huge, one-tailed beast growled at me.

"You'll have to go through all of us," Orochimaru said gleefully.

"Well." I stared from face to face as my mouth fell open. "Crap."

"You could go now, if you chose to," Orochimaru informed me. "Turn your back, and you won't have to struggle any longer."

"But I'd have to turn my back on my friends." I glared at him.

He smiled wider. "Yes."

I took one hesitant, stiff step forward. It took every bit of nerve I had to stare into the snake-guy's face and spit two words out between my teeth:

"Forget. It."

The smile faded from Orochimaru's face. "Very well," he said. "Don't say we didn't warn you."

And with that, he and his friends vanished, leaving me alone at the entrance to the village.