This is the last of my prewritten chapters. I would have posted it earlier, but I had other things to do these past few weeks. I know a lot of you are confused, but this chapter should clarify quite a few things. After all, this is an adventure, not a mystery. Hopefully, after reading this chapter, you'll start to realize what the adventure is.
And before you ask, yes, this chapter takes place immediately before the prologue.
By the way, in case you're interested, I remembered what inspired me to start writing this fic, all those months ago. Right where it belongs, by Nine Inch Nails. Enjoy.
Chapter three
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The bed was comfortable.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The ceiling was dull, devoid of substance.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Her head was filled with nothing… but the repetitive ticking of her clock.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
She blinked.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
A weary sigh escaped her throat.
Tick. Tick. Tick…
Sakura sat up, pulling both her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, trying to hold every piece of herself close.
'Looks I'm staying awake, tonight.'
She smiled. "Haven't you got enough sleep, Naruto? You've got to take mine away, too? So greedy…"
It was funny. She laughed bitterly.
Her eyes surveyed her surroundings carefully, like they somehow expected to find something they hadn't seen every day for years. Her room looked different at… at…
She sought out the clock that had occupied her mind and noted the position of the silver-plated hands. They gleamed brilliantly amid the shadows and branded the hour into her mind.
…two in the morning. The moon's glow passed through her bedroom window and liberally stained her belongings with its achromatic pallor. The teddy bear she'd gotten for her sixth birthday lost something in translation. The glitter sprinkled on the bow that surrounded its neck did not sparkle under the moonlight. The furry toy rested upright on her dresser and its beady eyes seemingly looked upon her form with contempt.
She almost felt like she'd entered another world, a world where garish goliaths entered comas and nobody could figure out what was wrong with them.
Sakura buried her face into her arms and held herself tighter, in an attempt at ignoring the monochrome world that surrounded her, filled as it was with objects that were as foreign to her as the moon above. She succeeded somewhat, and was left alone with her thoughts.
Three days.
He'd been in the Hokage's care for three days now.
The same woman that managed to cure one teammate's affliction in seconds, couldn't even tell them what was wrong with the other. It was almost suspicious in its terrifying bleakness, as if there was a conspiracy against a poor orphan child and all the doctors were in on it.
But then she remembered watching the beautiful blond woman struggle over her unconscious patient, barking orders left and right in such a way that left no avenue for disobedience or even debate, and the thought died a quick death.
"What am I supposed to do?" she whispered, simply to hear the sound of her own voice. It was awfully quiet at two in the morning. The stillness bothered her.
"It depends on what you want, Sakura-chan. I'll leave it all in your hands."
Her heart stopped. She wasn't expecting to hear an answer.
He was sitting on her desk, amidst her cosmetics and skincare products, like it was his favorite seat. He wore his usual outfit, but the colors were grayed out underneath the moonlight and she found herself glossing over them quickly. His skin tone appeared much paler than usual, creating greater contrast with the strange black markings etched on his cheeks. Three lines on each side, bearing some similarity to whiskers. She found herself staring at them for a long moment, as if she was seeing them for the first time. They looked different, almost symbolic under this light. She shifted her perspective, taking a step back to look at the bigger picture.
He looked tired. Not sleepy… just tired. It was all in the detail, playing out in the corner of his eyes, the sag in his shoulders, the curve of his posture. He looked quiet, beaten. It was all wrong. Naruto, of all the people she knew, should never look like that.
Still, there was the bigger question of what he was doing in her room in the middle of the night while his real body was in a coma.
She quickly pulled her sheets up to cover herself. "What are you doing here?" she hissed, fully conscious of the situation. It may only be a clone, smoke and shadows bent to a shape and a will, but there was still a boy in her room after dark.
Naruto's clone smiled. It was a wee thing, overwhelmed with weariness and something unidentifiable. "I came to see you, Sakura-chan," he whispered, the volume of his voice lower than she could ever remember hearing it.
If there was one aspect of Naruto's personality that annoyed her above all others, it was his penchant for taking things literally. It sometimes made conversations with him tedious, like he was constantly trying to catch up with the train of thought. "I can see that. Weren't you supposed to help Hokage-sama?"
His eyes unfocused and he tilted his head, seeming lost in thought. "He probably did, might even still be there, but if he is he won't last much longer. We all have to go back, sooner or later."
Her brow tightened. "What? You're a different clone? How many of you are out there?"
"Dunno," he said, shrugging his shoulders in indifference.
That didn't sound good. "Can't you guess?"
He obliged her and thought about it. "Three hundred, at least," he estimated.
"Three hun–!" That was ridiculous. How could someone in a coma possibly have so many clones running around?
Naruto shook his hand, as if to shake the topic away. "Listen, Sakura-chan. I don't have much time left, so I want to make it count."
Sakura blinked repeatedly. "I don't understand."
The clone grinned weakly. "I'm just a clone, Sakura-chan. I can't make chakra, but I still need chakra to live. I've been 'alive' for a few days now, and every second steals it away from me. I'm out of time. I'm going back, no matter what I do, so I want to do the right thing before I have to leave. So you'll remember me. Maybe at the end I won't make it out alive… but maybe that's the way it was supposed to be all along." This last admission came out with some difficulty, and it was clear that he didn't really believe what he was saying.
"But…" She was at a loss for words. How could she make him understand what she needed to hear? A sense of urgency began to assault her senses, as though there were only a few grains remaining in the hourglass of opportunity.
"Where are you going?"
"The source. The Original. The one who owns the name Naruto. The one who is me, but isn't. The most important me." The clone sighed. "Sakura-chan, I... he… Naruto needs your help."
"What?" She couldn't believe it. She leaned closer to him, to make sure the distance between them wasn't twisting his words into something crazy. "You know what the problem is?"
It grimaced. "Yeah, we all do. We always have."
That revelation wasn't going down easily. Its girth surpassed the width of her tolerance, and became affixed to the piping. The pressure built up nigh instantly, and she exploded, just barely managing to keep her voice down. "Why the hell didn't you say anything before now?"
The clone smiled ruefully. "We're just clones. We're not really alive, but we don't want to die either. Really, we're nothing but failures. All of us."
Something she saw in him, in his posture, his expression, his eyes, brought her to a pause.
It seemed to exude guilt.
A horrifying thought crept out from the crevices of her mind and clutched at her heart with a strong, freezing grip.
'No… It can't be.'
The clone's head bowed down, and it proceeded to confirm her fears.
"It's our fault," it admitted. "It's our fault he's like this. The Original… he's fighting us on the inside. We're eating him, Sakura-chan."
In the midst of her horrified realization, her teammate's body double slid off of her desktop and wobbled over to the window, taking short hesitant footsteps. He looked fragile, weak. Still, he managed to reach his destination without too much trouble, and leaned against the windowsill, gasping for breath.
"Yeah… time's up." He looked up to the ceiling, looking as though he was sending a prayer to whatever god would listen. It was odd to see. She'd never seen Naruto do such a thing.
He turned towards her, pointing those blue eyes of his straight into her heart. "Sakura-chan, I need to see baa-chan, but I can't make it there on my own. Help me reach her. Please."
It wasn't the first time she'd heard him plead, but, just this once, she could not even think of refusing. "Turn around, I need to get changed."
They hobbled down the deserted street of her residential neighborhood side by side, making slow progress down the concrete path. Everything was quiet and still, or perhaps just well hidden. At this time of night, only ninja would dare prowl, and even under the light reflected off the moon, none showed themselves to her senses. As far as she could tell, they were on their own.
Its left arm was draped around her shoulders like an orange scarf as she held onto its waist. The experience was unsettling. In all this time she'd never been so close to one of Naruto's clones. She must have been carrying over half its weight, but she wasn't feeling it at all.
She remembered having to carry both of her teammates during the chuunin exams, after Orochimaru's attack. Though Naruto was shorter than Sasuke, she clearly recalled feeling as though he weighed more, and at the time his skin had radiated heat like a furnace. However, this copy felt like ash in a man shaped balloon. It felt like it would float away like a feather if the wind picked up, and its skin felt like ice. Its movements were more awkward now, jerky and stiff, like rusty hinges on an old door. It felt like it would just break apart if she let it drop from her grasp.
Anxiety fluctuated and struck her mind in waves. 'What if it can't make it… what will I tell Hokage-sama? Will she believe me? Will she even listen to what I have to say?' she wondered. Sakura didn't think so. Why would the Hokage listen to a genin when she didn't have any proof, or really any idea what was going on?
At her side, it shifted in her grasp and spoke nervously. "Sakura-chan, don't stab me with that, okay? I'm not ready to go yet."
Her eyes narrowed. So it noticed, did it? Its situational awareness was greater than she'd expected. "Well, what did you expect me to do? You're killing my teammate." Still, she pulled the knife away from its waist.
The clone sighed in relief. "Yeah… b-but that doesn't mean I would do the same to you! None of us would ever try to hurt you, Sakura-chan. That's why… that's why it's gotta be you."
Blue eyes glistened and gleamed like precious stones in a pool of white sap, but failed to move her. Their owner had been using them on her for years with such frequency that she had long since been rendered immune. So, instead of paying them any undue attention, she kept her eyes on the road and pulled the clone onwards.
"What do you mean by that? What can I do? Why are you doing this in the first place?"
It kept its silence for a few seconds, and when it began to speak it did so hesitantly, like it was letting go of a dearly beloved secret. "Sakura-chan… what… what's the difference between him and me? We have the same memories, the same attitude, the same body, the same name, the same heart…" Its hand clutched at the fabric of its signature orange jacket, right over the heart.
"I'm real too! So why? Why do I have to be the one to disappear? Why can't I be the one that makes new memories?"
Its voice sounded desperate, despairing. The sound was absolutely alien to her ears. The distinction between Naruto and this pale imitation had never been so clean-cut, so total. Naruto never despaired no matter what stood against him. Naruto never lost hope.
Sakura felt her features twist into a truly awful expression, the facial muscles contracting to the point of discomfort, creating a frown, a snarl born of outrage and disgust.
'This thing isn't Naruto,' she realized.
This usurper was nothing like him. Nothing at all. In that moment she wanted nothing more than for this fake to stop sullying her teammate's body. She wanted to break it apart, to bring the disappearance it so feared so that it would never again show itself before her eyes, never again attempt such defilement. She felt no pity for the shade, the doppelgänger. This thing was killing her teammate. This thing wanted to take his rightful place.
But she could not let such a thing happen. A shadow should never try to stand before the sun. And in the end, this thing was not Naruto. It just wore his skin.
The clone was not finished. "Sakura-chan," it began to say, only to be interrupted when she dug her fingers into its waist.
"Don't call me that," she told it, like a master tells his apprentice, like a master tells his dog. "You're not him."
It jerked back, surprise and dismay playing across familiar features, but slowly began to bow its head down in acceptance. "Sorry," it whispered.
She doubled their pace. The clone struggled to match it, but did not complain.
Some things never changed, like the rise and fall of the sun.
Her eyelids were on the losing side of a tug-of-war, and only her rationality kept them from slipping past the point of no return, picking up the rope and pulling with a brief application of her titanic strength to reset the sides. But even it was starting to flounder, even it was starting to fall under the weight of so many desperate hours.
She was starting to lose her mind, she was sure of it. There couldn't be any other explanation, not when Jiraiya was starting to make sense.
"Tsunade, listen to me! You're not helping anyone like this, not the boy and especially not yourself. You need to go to bed and get some sleep."
Worry stained his voice, giving it character, strength, persuasiveness that he never wielded in his youth. But, it was also tarnished with hard earned wisdom, stained with the pain of a long life.
'You sound old, Jiraiya.'
His stare was bolstered by this sapience, pulling his every facial muscle into the expression and creating a frown that would have her compliance. The gaps left behind made him look as wizened as his voice. She looked down at his hands gripping the back of a chair and noted the wrinkles, calluses and scars that marked the passage of Time.
'You are old.'
Automatically, her eyes followed the path to the side of the bed, where a younger, smaller hand with unmarred skin lay cradled in her grasp. The hands that surrounded it, the ones that belonged to her, appeared supple and soft, and even felt like it, but she knew that what lurked beneath the surface differed mightily.
'We are old.'
Some things never changed, and thus became predictable. She knew what manner of dreams waited for her consciousness to lapse, hiding inside the cracks of her mind, lurking within the faults and fractures. Their victory was unavoidable and their ruthlessness was legendary. After all, she was living a nightmare, so it only made sense that monsters would drag her into their home and do their worst where they were most comfortable.
Right now, consciousness was a branch that she could hold onto against the pull of terror. To let go would be to fall beneath the waves into the most terrible depths of her psyche.
On any other day she would find an ally in the bottom of a glass, but now she was needed. Her faculties were precious, coveted and revered throughout the continent. She could not afford to dull them now.
She shook her head, and watched Jiraiya's face fall with a well-practiced sense of impassiveness. She couldn't afford sleep. Especially when she wasn't going to get any rest.
Tsunade turned her focus back to the child lying beneath the covers, fenced in by complex seals that glowed eerily under the moonlight, tinting everything in their periphery in soft eldritch glow. The fingers of her left hand moved to comb through his stiff, dry hair, gently massaging the scalp in hopes of a reaction.
"Naruto… I won't let you down," she whispered to him. "I'm here for you. I will not fail, not this time. I'll save you. I promise."
For a second, she thought she saw some eye movement under the cover of his eyelids, but she realized that this was probably wishful thinking.
Some things never changed.
This wouldn't be one of them.
"What do we know?"
She heard his sigh, but Jiraiya didn't choose to press the issue.
"Nothing," he replied. "We checked everything there was to check and came out of it with nothing. No wounds that we could find, physical or otherwise. No lacerations, no bruising, no poisons and no traces of foreign chakra. No sign of any kind of trauma. The wounds he received were healed before he was brought here. There just isn't anything keeping him under."
Of course, Tsunade already knew this. She just wanted to get her facts together, in the hopes of uncovering an obscure clue.
"What about…" she trailed off, holding half her sentence back. Speaking that name where its owner might be able to hear felt wrong, somehow.
"Checked that too. That chakra is well within the documented levels. The seal's holding. It's not… that," he affirmed.
"What about Shizune?"
"Nothing on that end. You read the report. If there was something odd about that kage bunshin then she couldn't find it. Not with so little time."
Tsunade held back the urge to sigh and began to slide her thumb against Naruto's cheek, passing over his unique birthmarks along the way and immediately lost interest in her predictable conversation with Jiraiya. It was the first time she'd ever touched them and she had expected them to feel differently, like scars. Instead, they felt exactly like normal skin. If she closed her eyes, she wouldn't even know they were there. How odd.
Jiraiya brought her back to the ground like weighted shackles on an albatross.
"Come on, Tsunade."
He didn't say anything more, he didn't need to. He just placed his hand on her shoulder, and it felt like ultimate judgment had passed, like an ancient sage had stripped her of her excuses to stare obscenely at the naked truth. She felt the urge to cover up, but she was fatigued, listless like a broken animal… weighed down by the knowledge that she was only going through the motions to delay the inevitable, that she had no real chance to grasp at victory.
"Will you watch him?"
His hand gently squeezed her shoulder. "Every second."
She snorted, but didn't refute his words. She stared at Naruto for a long moment, taking in his slack expression before focusing on the steady rise and fall of his chest.
'You're alive. You're not dead.'
If she was lucky… No. She wouldn't rely on luck. Not for this.
Tomorrow, she would go over every stitch of documentation left behind by her two predecessors concerning Naruto and his prisoner. There was an entire room full of that stuff, raw data that was almost completely useless. To extract useful information out of that would probably take weeks, but she no longer had a choice. There was nothing else to do.
"Alright. Have it your way."
She brought her hand back from the boy's cheek, but hung on to his hand for a moment longer. "If something happens…"
"You'll be the first to know," he assured.
Nodding regretfully, Tsunade climbed to her feet and turned to move out of the room, but stopped in mid-motion. There was something…
"Is something wrong?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. I just… had a feeling." She turned to look at Jiraiya and found him staring back silently. A moment wobbled by, stuffed to the brim by unfulfilled anticipation.
Visibly tired of the silence, Jiraiya opened his mouth to speak but was almost immediately interrupted by the sound of strong, urgent knocking.
As she walked towards the door and passed by Jiraiya's disgruntled expression, Tsunade was blindsided and manhandled by humor, which pushed and wrestled her expression into a wry smile.
Some things never changed. But she had to admit, Jiraiya's awful timing was one the more amusing constants in her life.
It was undignified and immature, but she kept at it anyway, because it was terribly effective.
Sakura could feel its borrowed eyes lingering on her from the other side of the room, silently beckoning her to turn to it, to acknowledge its existence. It begged through its eyes with the desperation of a dying man, as though its very survival depended on her attention. Unfortunately for the clone, if it had been hanging from a ledge above a ravine and she had been the only person capable of pulling it to safety, then it might as well have resigned itself to its fate and saved itself the struggle. If it had to count on her to save it, then it was certainly going to plummet until its frail body impacted the jagged rocks below.
She pitilessly ignored it with every fiber of her being, with her arms crossed tightly against her chest and her eyes fixed on the waiting room wall, cataloging the cracks in the paint.
Naruto was as transparent as a pane of glass. For a ninja, he was painfully easy to read. He put his heart on every morning, treating it like his forehead protector and displaying it for the entire world to see, as though it was protection instead of a weakness. Sometimes, she wondered why he even bothered trying to become a shinobi.
She, along with most everyone else in their class, had figured it out a long time ago. Nothing hurt Naruto more than ignoring him. If you insulted him, he would either fire back or shrug it off. If you hit him, he would complain, violently or verbally, but either way he would forget all about it in no time. But if you ignored him, it would drive him insane. He hated being ignored or overlooked more than anything in the world, it got under his skin like nothing else. It was unmistakable, completely obvious.
Luckily for her, Naruto's clones looked, walked and talked like him without actually being him. The silent treatment was almost certainly driving it mad, but it kept its distance, the reasons for which were still unclear to her, but were probably related to fatigue or shame. Naruto would have been knee-deep in her personal space right about now, but then, this wasn't Naruto.
'This isn't Naruto. It looks like him, but it's not.'
Sakura kept repeating this thought in her mind, forcing herself not to forget it. If she let herself be fooled, then one of those copies just might wind up replacing him, and falsehoods should never be allowed to replace the truth.
It wasn't Naruto. It was just a lie given form.
The green glow surrounding the inquisitive hands faded and disappeared, and the beautiful Hokage opened her eyes. "You're almost out of chakra," she remarked. "I'm surprised you lasted this long."
The clone raised its head towards the sky, as though to thank the mercy of a god. "I'm glad I managed to make it here before I died."
It was such a wretched creature, but she couldn't quite bring herself to pity it. The anger was boiling deep in the recesses of her heart for the desecration it had allowed voice, so she sat silently on her side of the room, contributing nothing to the conversation as the two Sannin observed the flawed clone.
The Hokage stared it down. "You won't die."
"Yes I will."
The cold certainty in its voice was chilling, but the Hokage weathered it without a shiver. She placed her hands onto the clone's shoulders and looked directly into its eyes. "You won't. I'll save you Naruto, I promise."
'That thing isn't Naruto!' As that thought blazed its way through her mind, she tried to muster up the courage to speak up in front of the village leader. But before she could break through barriers of etiquette, she found that she didn't have to.
The copy closed its eyes, as though it couldn't bear to see the Hokage's earnest face anymore. "Maybe you really will save him," it whispered. "But that's not me anymore. I get that now. No one can save me, and to save myself, I'd have to…"
"Have to what? Tell me," Tsunade implored it.
"I'd have to become a monster."
Such an admission was surprising, and the Hokage looked just as surprised as Sakura felt. In the midst of the stunned silence, the other man in the room approached them with his hands in his pockets.
"Something tells me you're about to say something we're not going to want to hear."
The clone turned to face the mature man, smiling fondly. "Ero-sennin…" It stopped in mid-sentence, quickly and shamefully bowing its borrowed head. "Sorry. I shouldn't call you that, Jiraiya."
The Sannin froze in his tracks, visibly unable to believe the words he was hearing. "Naruto?"
It grimaced. "That's his nickname for you, and I'm not him. I have all of his memories, but there's something… missing inside of me. Something important. At first, I couldn't tell the difference at all, but as time went on it became…"
It drifted off, showing a twisted expression and shook its head wildly, just like Naruto did when he was failing to come up with a good idea. "I don't know how to explain it. It's like… dawn without the sun. I keep waiting for it to come up, so that the day can begin, but it never does and it's only gotten darker and colder since then. Everything's dying. Everything's rotting. It hurts to go on. I can't… I can't smile anymore. I don't remember how."
Its face twisted in a grimace, and it took her a while to realize that it was trying to pull off Naruto's sunshine smile. Its effort subsided and its expression finally did settle into a smile, but it was far from sunlight. At best, it was a candle in a windy room, and in a few seconds even that tiny flame was snuffed out by the gales of its depression.
Standing tall in the middle of the room, the toad sage Jiraiya rubbed at his chin absentmindedly. "How much time?"
The clone scrunched its eyebrows and formed a familiar expression of confusion. "What?"
"You said: 'as time went on'. How much time are we talking about here?"
"I don't know… I was born during the chuunin exam finals. Hyuuga Neji was the one who dispelled me."
"…Wait a second here," Jiraiya said. "Putting your date of birth aside for now, how can you even tell?"
The clone slowly shook its head. "I don't understand."
"How do you know that? How do you know when 'you' were dispelled?"
It shrugged. "I don't know. It's a memory, I guess?" it answered confusedly.
Jiraiya grimaced and began to rub at his temple. "Wait a second here… you're not telling me… that's not possible is it?" he muttered.
"Jiraiya, what is it?" the Hokage asked.
Jiraiya wiped his face with his palm, from top to bottom. "This guy's memories didn't merge back with Naruto's after he was dispelled. They remained separate. It's the only way he'd be able to tell when he was destroyed."
She immediately turned to stare at the clone, and something in her eyes seemed to change, becoming sharper so as to cut through layers of fatty tissue to reach the artery. "Do you think it's an isolated case, or something more?"
Jiraiya walked over to room's edge and grabbed one of the cushioned seats, dragging it behind him until he reached them. He sat down on the edge of the seat leaning forwards, and something about their group's proximity made her feel like an outsider as she watched them from her side of the room.
After a few moments of heavy thought, the legendary ninja shook his head. "No… this explains everything. Think about it. How many kage bunshin has Naruto created since he learned the technique? With the amount of chakra he has at his disposal and the lack of suitable alternatives, he must have used the technique at every opportunity, without any real limit. He must have created thousands upon thousands of clones by now! And if none of them ever really disappear… if they all wind up considering themselves to be different from the original, then they just might—"
"Good," the clone interrupted, drawing all eyes towards it. It smiled like flickering candlelight again. "Looks like you've got it. Maybe you've got what it takes to save him after all. Save him from us, from suicide."
Its baby blue eyes turned to her, and she quickly looked away.
"Sakura…"
She felt nervous for some reason. Her hands fell to her lap and fretfully clutched at the skirt and she stuttered just a tiny bit as she answered, "What?"
"Sorry I wasn't good enough. I… didn't want it to end like this."
Sakura didn't know what to do. She was supposed to be angry at it, but genuine remorse had a way of dousing righteous anger. The clone had apologized for the wrong thing but it had admitted its wrongdoing. It had told the truth.
She didn't know what to say, so she simply stuck to the plan. She didn't answer, she didn't move… she didn't even look its way.
A long moment later, the toad sage felt the need to fill the silence. "What's going to happen to you?"
The clone stared at her for a moment longer before answering. "I'll go back to the Cradle. I probably won't be able to make it out again." It leaned back into his seat and stared at the ground, smiling wryly.
"Naruto's strong you know, stronger than me and my 'brothers'. If we fought together, we could probably take him down, but the Hokage's hat only accepts one. So my brothers fight, kill and eat one another for the power to stand against him, to kill him, eat him and become him. It's disgusting…" The volume of its voice began to dim as it talked, even as its intensity bubbled and overflowed.
"I didn't want to live like that. So, I ran and I'll keep running until they catch up to me, to kill me and eat the memories I hold dear, the memories that make me who I am, that make me different from me, all so that they can become a tiny bit stronger, a tiny bit closer to their goal. They call themselves Naruto, but they aren't him either! They have even less right to that name than me! They've become twisted, savage killers! No better than devils and ogre, they're just monst—"
Suddenly, it began to wheeze and gasp for air. "I can't…" A thick, dry cough sent out a large cloud of white smoke into the air, like its mouth was the exhaust to a steam engine. The Hokage moved to assist it, but was almost violently waved off. The clone continued on its final sprint without missing a step, every word spitting out clouds of smoke into the air.
"To save Naruto, you'll have to find him. He's strong, but he's all alone in there, and I don't know how much longer he can last."
Thin lines of smoke like fumes from sticks of incense began to escape from all of its orifices, its mouth, ears and nostrils, even its tear ducts. With fibrils of smoke caressing the contours of its face as they rose for the sky, the clone looked like it was burning from the inside out.
The image sent her heart into palpitations. This thing wasn't Naruto, but it certainly looked like him. The image of its suffering was what nightmares were made of, and she had the feeling that they would come visit her bed more often over the next few nights.
Jiraiya spoke up, showing poise and calm in a situation that had her feeling like fish out of water. "How long do we have?"
The clone, with its teeth grit and its muscled tensed and immobile, wheezed out, "I told you, I don't know. Time goes by differently in there. I've been out here for a few days now, but it's probably been close to half a year for them. All I know, is that he probably doesn't have much time left. And neither do I."
The man frowned. "Five to six months then? If you've been out here since Naruto was found, then that's three days. Three days for six months… so every minute out here is an hour in there?"
The clone slowly shook its head and relaxed its tensed muscles, or maybe it just didn't have the energy to hold on anymore and was forced into letting go. "I can't… stay… any longer," it whispered. "Be careful… who you send. It's dangerous in… Naruto's head…might not get in…might not get out. Depends… how much he likes 'em."
With that final clue, it smiled its last candlelight smile and swiftly began to dissolve into a shapeless cloud of particles, releasing thick plumes of smoke from its every pore until its entire body was engulfed by the cloud.
"Good luck."
His blue eyes were the last things to disappear, and they stayed fixed on her until the very end.
The next hour was a frazzling whirlwind of activity as the Hokage used the full breadth of her authority to call upon the best and brightest of her ninja. At her command, a dozen men and women wearing full body cloaks and concealing porcelain masks disappeared into the night, and within minutes began to reappear, escorting one or two ninja of varying age and rank into the depths of the hospital.
None of them were familiar to a genin like her, but every one of them seemed competent and disciplined, as evidenced by their response time and the lack of fatigue they exhibited as they crowded around a low table, despite the late hour. The toad sage Jiraiya was at the center of that table, speaking to the attentive ninja as he inked out designs on a large scroll. His voice was clearly audible from where she was sitting and described procedures that were probably very interesting, but she had other things to think about; a self-destructive teammate to worry about, so she paid very little attention to the briefing. Her focus was almost completely introverted as she fruitlessly sank all of her concentration in an attempt to dissect the words and actions of that flawed copy.
Naruto was the worst liar she knew, but there no guarantee that such a broken clone would also be incapable of speaking lies. So she went over every twitch of its fake body and every murmur that had escaped its mouth, using the skills that had been taught to her to check for untruths. Or at least, that's what she told herself.
Honestly, she was just wasting time, trying desperately not to believe in its prophecy. She already knew it was telling the truth, because two of the legendary Sannin had also listened to that story and immediately began to act upon the information it had provided. There was no better endorsement than that.
Still, she went over her recent memories with a fine tooth comb, just to avoid thinking about other, more important things, things she couldn't do anything about, so that she wouldn't have to feel helplessness on top of such distress.
She kept busy, because it was what she had been taught to do in order to deal with grief. Naruto wasn't dead, but it didn't look like he was going to wake up anytime soon, if ever. As his teammate, she knew better than anyone just how much he liked to use that technique.
'He's probably made one clone for every man, woman and child in Konoha… probably more. Tch… what have you gotten yourself into?'
She didn't know how it was supposed to work, but if the inside of his head was anything like the real world, just how was he supposed to fight against so many enemies on his own? Especially when they all had his abilities, his training, his strength, his speed… all of his memories to use against him.
And if the clone had been telling the truth, then it's been going on for so long that it was beyond her understanding! Team 7 was created almost a year ago, and Naruto once told her that he learned kage bunshin just before the team was put together. If three days converted to six months then Naruto's earliest clones should have experienced close to 61 years of existence! Even if they didn't learn anything new, they still had six decades to master what they had learned, which gave them about 74 years of experience.
The Sandaime Hokage had been 68 years of age at his death, and he had been one of the oldest shinobi in the village. Naruto was only thirteen! How was he supposed to fight against that?
He couldn't. He shouldn't. His only option was to hide, but how long could that last? With so many eyes to avoid, how long could he run?
Even if he was still alive, when every minute out here was an hour in there, how much time they did really have to save him?
'Is it already too late? No… it can't be. It just can't.'
She couldn't stand thinking about how low their chances really were. So she kept busy. So busy that she barely even looked when the door to the waiting room opened, allowing a fuzzy blob that she barely distinguished as an ANBU to lead another fuzzy blob into the room.
Oddly enough, that blob began to walk directly towards her. When she realized that it wasn't stopping, she looked up and met the eyes of a familiar figure.
Her ex-best friend. Yamanaka Ino.
'Short hair doesn't suit you, Ino-pig.'
The loss of her long hair was possibly the most significant injury of their match during the third round preliminaries at the chuunin exams, even if it was self-inflicted. Ever since then, Sakura was stricken by an irrational urge to apologize.
She didn't of course. An apology from a rival likely wouldn't be appreciated.
Ino appeared before her wearing articles of clothing that had never before graced her skin. Her clothes were obviously new, but utilitarian and easily disposable; a simple white shirt and blue shorts. Her hair was brushed but her face sported no makeup, giving her a more natural feel than usual, making her seem more businesslike.
'What are you doing here, Ino? Don't tell me that you were the only Yamanaka available.'
Ino's reason for being here was so obvious that it was unthinkable. The Yamanaka clan had one specialty, one claim to fame in the ninja world, and that was possession, mind-walking. Considering the nature of Naruto's… illness, it made sense that a member of the Yamanaka clan would be called upon to help. But Ino was a beginner in the ninja world; she was only capable of using the most basic of her clan's techniques. Naruto's ailment seemed so incredibly complex that it seemed almost impossible that Ino could do anything to help.
So really, she had to ask.
Their voices overlapped and melded together as they both started speaking.
"Ino?" / "Sakura? What are you doing here?"
They both stopped in their tracks, momentarily stunned by the odd spell of synchronization that took hold of them. The silence felt like the quiet after two competing rams slammed their heads together, like the momentary deafness that occurred in two heavyweight boxers just after they simultaneously landed heavy blows on one another.
Just as always, Ino was fractionally faster to react. She crossed her arms, insisting, "I asked you first! What's going on?"
Sakura knew better than to argue. If she wanted to get an answer out of Ino and not devolve this conversation into a shouting match, she would have to play by her rules. Besides, she wasn't in the mood to fight with Ino today.
And yet, in spite of her decision to go ahead and answer Ino's questions, Sakura found herself hesitating, biting her lower lip as she mulled over what to tell her.
"Well… did you hear what happened to Naruto?"
At those words, the aggressive tension that lined Ino's body dissipated. Her narrowed eyes widened, her stiff lips split open, her arms uncrossed… and just like that Ino the rival was replaced by Ino the friend.
"No… something happened to Naruto? Is he okay?"
Sakura's eyes fell onto her lap. "I don't know. He won't wake up."
"Oh." Ino's eyes quickly surveyed the room. "You're here alone? Is Sasuke-kun here?"
She shook her head and didn't elaborate. Truth was she hadn't seen Sasuke since they found Naruto's body.
"Hokage-sama has been personally handling Naruto's case but she couldn't find anything wrong with him. He just… sleeps all day."
There was silence between them as Ino walked half a step towards her, showing clear reluctance to keep going, like she was approaching a man-eating lion with its paw caught in a bear trap. Sakura felt a bitter needle stab her heart.
'I guess years of bitter rivalry aren't so easy to overcome.'
Once upon a time, this beautiful, vibrant girl had pulled her from the abyss of self-doubt and failure… no, it was more than that. Ino had taught her how to pull herself from that pit of depression, and Sakura would never forget it. That's why she brought out the fondest feelings out of her heart and showed her a smile made of softness and traces of regret. To show that it was okay, that she didn't have to hold her hand anymore. To show her that she was strong.
"Well, I'm sure he'll wake up soon. It's been three days already. Not even Naruto can sleep that long."
Ino looked into her eyes and saw something that made her wavering expression coagulate and her hesitation dissipate. She then crossed the remaining distance in easy strides and plunked herself down on the seat beside hers.
"Well don't worry then! They dragged my Dad out of bed for this, and he'll definitely have no problem pulling Naruto's lazy butt back to the waking world!"
Sakura barely resisted the mad urge to giggle inanely. A subtle pressure touched the back of her eyes and she realized that she was getting ready to cry.
Immediately, she put everything she had into making sure that didn't happen. On some level, she and Ino would always be friends, but that didn't mean that she would allow herself to fall apart in front of her, even if she knew Ino would comfort her, or perhaps even because of it.
"It's not that easy, Ino."
"Reeeally? So, what are you not telling me?"
Sakura looked away and decided not to bother with subterfuge. "I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you."
"Oh, come on Sakura. How bad can it be?"
The lights flickered, plunging the building in intermittent darkness, like it was inside a giant blinking eye.
Complete silence engulfed them all, as they stared at the ceiling lights.
Under normal circumstances, power fluctuations wouldn't be too alarming, except for the fact that they were inside a hospital. Several redundancies were built into the system to make sure that this type of thing didn't happen, under any circumstances.
The lights simply should not have flickered.
A whisper crept out of Ino's lips. "…What just happened?"
The lights cut out. None of them screamed. They were ninja, after all. The darkness should hold no secrets from them.
However, these shadows held none of the comforts of a hiding place. It felt more like a blindfold had been pulled over her eyes to deny her the instrument of sight, forcing her to experience the symphony of life using only her remaining senses.
Her nose told her that she was in a building that had been recently cleaned with a liberal dose of lemon scented cleaner.
Her ears told her that she was alone, but she recalled that there were over a dozen people in the room with her when the lights went out. Either they weren't moving or they were all amazingly talented at moving silently, even without any noise to mask the sound of movement.
Her tongue told her that she was dehydrated, and that she should get something to drink.
Her skin told her that she was cold, that the temperature had been dropping steadily for several seconds, to the point where she was beginning to worry. Goosebumps broke out on her arms and called for attention, and she rubbed them absentmindedly as she slowly came to the conclusion that she was under a jutsu. She brought her hands into the proper hand sign and molded her chakra.
Kai!
Nothing happened. Either the technique failed or there was nothing to dispel.
As Sakura prepared to try again, something deep inside of her, perhaps even the deepest part, was intruded upon.
Icy fingers of intent reached out and touched the core of her being, bringing frightful perspective, awareness of how fragile she really was, of how those cold fingers could form a fist to snuff her life out with only minimal effort. She felt so unbearably small beside that presence, like an ant beside a mountain that she dared not move, dared not scream lest she draw its ire.
Those fingers spent a second feeling her out, and she instinctively realized that it could not actually see her, before sending out raw meaning.
A message… like a whispering voice in her innermost ear…
I'm not sure where you are or if you can hear this, so I think I'll just shout it out as loud as I can. This message is for the man that was just inside my head. Everyone else, please ignore this!
Now, I think remember you. You're Ino's father, right? I don't really understand how you got in here. I think Shikamaru explained it to me once, but I don't really remember what he said.
So yeah, what did you think you were doing? You were really creepy you know, creepier than ero-sennin in a brothel. I know you don't like me, so don't try to act like you're worried about me. Honesty is the best policy you know! If you lie to me, it makes it real hard for me to trust you, and the old man always said that I should never trust anyone who tells me to trust them. Aren't you a jounin? I thought you'd be a more convincing liar. Kakashi-sensei is a much better liar than you.
I don't really know if you've ever tried to talk with people when you break inside their heads, so I guess I gotta be the one to point it out. It's really hard to lie to someone when you're inside their head. Really, really hard. And when I think about it, isn't that kind of impolite? I mean, the least you could do is say hello, right? You're acting like a regular thief, Mister Yamanaka.
Well, Mister Thief, I don't know what you were trying to steal, but you're not welcome here, so don't try to come back. Next time you bust in here I won't save you, and you'll wander through the catacombs forever.
Or maybe I'll let Him get to you first. You've been in my head, Mister Yamanaka. Don't think I couldn't feel your true feelings. Normally, I would let it go, but this is a special case.
If you venture into the ogre's lair, expect to be eaten!
Stay out of my head and we'll get along fine. Bye bye, Mister Thief. For everyone else, sorry for the inconvenience! Naruto out~!
When the odd avenue of communication came to an end, the fingers slipped away, retreating back to their mountainous source. Soon after, power returned to the hospital and its eager lamps immediately flooded its rooms with light.
She was quickly forced to squint as the sudden brightness burned her eyes, and by the time she could fully open them again, the room was emptied of all other occupants, save for Inoichi's daughter.
'What… just happened?'
Ino looked like a life-sized doll as she sat scrunched up into a tight ball, with her knees brushing her chin and her arms wrapped around herself like a blanket. The pallor of her skin would have alarmed anyone, but the intensity of her stare belied her body's condition.
"You know what Sakura?" Her voice croaked awkwardly out of her throat, accompanying plumes of white mist condensed by the cold.
Sakura blinked a few times and weakly shook her head, as her mind suffocated in a miasma of confusion.
"You don't have to tell me after all. I'm not sure I want to know."