Chapter 14 - Moondream: Shikaku and Inoichi

"I know better, drifting off in a place like this." Sharon stretched and let out a long yawn. "Hana, sweetie, we need to -"

Her sentence was cut short. Hana's gigai lay empty, with a giant root hovering over it. Three tendrils tapped her three filled petals in the flower on her chest. Hana herself was nowhere to be seen.

A rising panic swept over Sharon before she closed her eyes and tried to regain control. Breathing deeply as she had been taught, she fought down the panic and tried to assess the situation. It isn't like Hana could really go much of anywhere without the gigai, she thought. She's just a baby. She's just a baby. But somehow my baby has grown and fallen in love. How on earth did that happen? She's not been out of my sight and then she was in this crazy place with these people right out of a manga for heaven's sake and somehow she's been stuck in the gigai for weeks and

Sharon cut herself short before the panic tried to take control again.

Overhead, a blood red moon shone. Shone? It shouldn't be this bright. In fact, it seemed like it was getting brighter the longer she noticed. What the bloody hell is going on here?

After another deep breath, Sharon took a closer look at the root and tendrils. They thrummed with energy, more of that "chakra" type energy, that "not-reiatsu" stuff. No wonder they didn't notice me, she thought. No chakra. But Hana had some, even though it was only a little. What did she see? Where did she go?

Sharon knelt down and placed her hands around the tendrils on Hana's gigai's chest. They were quite firmly attached. Without trying to work them loose, she grasped them tightly and closed her eyes, seeking. Deep within the energy of the root, she began to see sparks, individual flickers of light in a vast sea of chakra. So this was the plan, she thought. Trap anyone with chakra en masse and keep them from interfering with whatever he was going to do. But where did Hana go? Suddenly something clicked, and she understood. She went to find Chouji. Because she wasn't soul-bound to the gigai, she was free to move within this... tree of people. So logically, she would go searching for her crush. Le sigh... This is truly going to be a pain.

I swear, this is almost like that scene from one of those Madeline L'Engle novels, she thought. That one with the mitochondria and farandole, where she had to figure out how to move when her body wasn't moving. She tried to push into the chakra sea. Then she saw two lights that were moving between the lights that were standing still. She squinted, if one could really call what she was doing was "seeing" to begin with, and saw... two souls. Souls? Here? Are they more reincarnates like Minato?

Sharon relaxed and let herself imagine motion. It was as if she were dreaming and doing it all in her mind alone. She took one step, then another, making her way forward toward the two moving lights.

Suddenly she broke free and found herself standing near a large man with a great mane of red hair, pointing proudly at a boy. Not just a boy, a giant, with small people running around like ants beneath him. And the boy had a beautiful pair of butterfly wings on his back. They glowed iridescent blue and purple, and they were made completely of chakra.

Sharon blinked a few times before realizing the boy was Chouji. Or - supposed to be Chouji. It certainly looked like him, but it wasn't. It was... fake. Like a painting on a backdrop, or a projected movie image.

She rubbed her eyes and looked again. "Chouji" was apparently fighting someone, and doing a pretty good job of it. The man who was pointing was now proudly beaming and telling anyone who would listen how proud he was of his son.

Eh?

The two souls were now standing near the man, smiling and telling him how proud they were of all their children.

Until they saw Sharon, and their eyes opened wide.

They politely excused themselves and approached her. The man with the great red mane turned his attention back to the panorama and the giant "Chouji".

"You aren't stuck here. You can move freely between the illusions." It wasn't a question so much as a statement of fact. This came from the soul with dark hair, bound and sticking up in the back.

"And you aren't living, at least not technically." Sharon looked them over curiously.

The two souls gave each other a long look before the dark-haired one spoke again. "I believe introductions are in order. My name is Nara Shikaku." He glanced at the other soul, a tall blond man. "I am Yamanaka Inoichi." He nodded back at the dark-haired man. "And you are not bound to the illusions."

Sharon paused, thought a minute, and another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. "My name is Hitsugaya Sharon. And if I'm not mistaken, you are the fathers of Shikamaru and Ino, right?" The two souls shared another meaningful glance. Sharon started waving her hands in front of her. "No, don't get me wrong. I don't know them personally. Or well. Or whatever. I've heard of them. Oh blast it. Let me start over." Sharon gave a small bow. "Please let me introduce myself. I am a shinigami by marriage, Hitsugaya Sharon. My daughter Hitsugaya Hana is loose in this crazy place, and I'm trying to find her again, after I just found her. We seem to be lost in the middle of a story within a story. You said 'bound'. What did you mean?"

Shikaku got very serious. "You don't exactly look like a shinigami, at least any I have heard of. But now that we're dead, we're finding out things we didn't know were possible before. Unfortunately, we have no way to make anyone understand. The ones we can talk to are locked in dreams, bound by the power of the Infinite Tsukuyomi genjutsu."

"Tsuku... yomi?" Sharon asked doubtfully. "Moon... dream?"

"Moon-dream?" Shikaku asked?

"'Tsuki' means moon, right? And 'yume' is dream?" Sharon puzzled her way through it. "I'm not a native Japanese speaker, and the polyglot only seems to work so far."

"Polyglot?"

"I speak English. You speak Japanese. Yet we are understanding one another. That's because of the polyglot. Without it, we wouldn't understand a word each other was saying. But with it, I can follow most of the time. Unfortunately, not all words come through, so I hear a Japanese word and have to puzzle it out." Sharon grew thoughtful. "So what you're saying is everybody is dreaming, and the dreams are linked together by this huge tree? But since you're dead, you're wandering around from dream to dream by those physically linked to the tree?"

Inoichi replied. "From what we have been able to gather, the tree is linking everyone and everything with chakra and draining it back into itself. While their bodies are linked to the tree, their minds are locked in pleasant fantasies. Each person is dreaming in his own world - and since everyone is tied to the tree, nobody can wake them up."

"Wow. Just... wow." Sharon paused a moment to digest this. "Okay. At some point you're going to have to catch me up. I haven't read the manga in so long, I don't know what's going on in the story. And no, I'm not trying to offend you. Where I come from, you are characters in a story, one I've not been able to read since I died myself. In the immediate present, however, I need to find my daughter. I think she's trying to get to Chouji. I take it that's Chouji's dad?"

"His name is Akimichi Chouza, and he is not dead. He was not in the place we were when we were killed. But..." Shikaku grew thoughtful. "If we redirect his dream, perhaps we can use it to locate Chouji-kun. He is already focused on Chouji, but from a distance."

"Yeah. From here it looks almost like a movie on a screen. It feels like if I reached out, I would touch canvas." Sharon put her hand to her mouth in a gesture of concentration, tapping her foot, then pacing slowly.

"Perhaps..." Shikaku frowned.

"Perhaps?"

"Perhaps if we told him Chouji-kun had a girlfriend?"

Sharon felt a slow grin cross her face. "And if Chouji is dreaming of his girlfriend..."

"The two dreams might overlap enough for us to cross from one to the other..."

"And since Hana is already looking for him and probably by now has found him..."

"We will find Chouji-kun, and probably Hana-chan with him."

"Anybody ever told you you're brilliant?"

Shikaku laughed. "I was a strategist. It's what I do. Or did, anyway."

"Remind me to ask later what happened - after we find Hana. I really want to know."

"Agreed. And if you are a shinigami, then perhaps you could loose us from this place?"

"I'm not a shinigami from your world, so I don't know how. I'm sorry," she responded sadly.

"Oh well. First things first. Let us handle Chouza. You concentrate on finding Chouji-kun's dream."

"Eh? What do you mean?"

Inoichi explained. "There are many people, and many dreams. The easiest way to go from dream to dream is to find ones that resonate with each other. So if two people are dreaming about a common thing, or person, the dreams come close together. The dreamers don't know each other is dreaming about the same thing, but those of us not bound to our own dream use the common thing to cross from one dream setting to another. If you're trying to find a particular dream or dreamer without using resonance, it's a lot harder. You can't see much from the space between the dreams."

"So it's like looking for a needle in a haystack, then?"

Shikaku looked thoughtful. "I suppose you could put it that way. Our odds are increased if we do it this way."

"I only came here because I saw you two moving from light to light within the darkness. All those lights... are individual dream worlds? No wonder it's so hard. They flicker in the dark, and occasionally I saw lights cross and touch, but they always went back to their places except for you two."

"What dream setting do you think would most likely link us to Chouji-kun?" Inoichi asked Shikaku.

"Best chance is a meal, with Hana-chan being introduced to her boyfriend's family." Shikaku grinned at Sharon. "And her mother also, of course. He probably won't remember this when he wakes up, though. Pity."

Sharon let out an exasperated sigh. "We aren't of this world. Chouji shouldn't have ever met Hana in the first place, and once we're gone, he will probably forget he ever knew her. I can't see him clinging to her, but she's never going to forget him."

"Let's get on with it then," Shikaku said, as he walked back to Chouza.

Satscout: Aaaaand I'm back. Sorta.

Hana, tapping foot: Mama...

Satscout, innocently: Yes, dear?

Hana: Publish.

Satscout: Working on it.

Hitsugaya: Like my new look?

Satscout, beaming: Very much so, dear. Congratulations on your "mature" Daiguren. You cut quite a dashing figure. Oh, and I'm glad they let you live.

Hitsugaya: I'm a fan favorite. Otherwise, I probably would have been allowed to die quietly.

Hana, pouting: Mama...

Satscout: Might I remind you, dear, that I'm no longer working because I'm filing for disability? And that in part means that sitting up and putting your story on a screen requires more energy than I usually have to give? Be grateful.

Hana: But I want Chouji.

Satscout: Next chapter. Be patient. Or at least make the effort. But you don't get to keep him, remember that.

Hana: I don't see why not. This is fanfiction. You can write whatever you want.

Satscout: This is backstory and I'm following the mangas. End of discussion.

Hana: *pouting*