Chapter 36

The displaced man's mind was a haze of pain and agony. Sensory overload of such an impossible caliber that his body had just shut down. So severe were his injuries that even his subconscious could not quantify it through the influencing of his dreams. He was in so much pain that he was quite literally paralyzed by it, barely able to force his lungs to inflate to draw in wheezes of air. Even his heart was having trouble, beating weakly and erratically.

Through the thick haze of his pain-induced coma, without warning, Hibiki felt the presence of another. Without even realizing he'd done so, Hibiki slowly released himself from the ball he'd curled up in to to look up at the figure. Hibiki was so far gone, physically and mentally, that he couldn't tell whether or not he was dreaming. Where was he? Who was this deeply gray-skinned man, and why did he look as alien as he did human?

The mans mouth moved, but Hibiki could hear nothing - whatever was causing this pain was too great, and it seemed like the man knew this. He opened his eyes wide, the rippling, purple orbs piercing Hibiki's own onyx eyes, and the man bypassed all barriers - speaking not to Hibiki's pain addled mind, but to his very soul.

Let go. The man said, firmly.

Hibiki clenched his jaw and shut his eyes tight, trying to block out the pain for even a moment to gurgle out a response.

The man seemed to know what Hibiki was going to say before he could even think to say it. Let go. All will right itself if you just let go.

Hibiki had no idea what this man was talking about. Let go of what? Why was he in so much pain, and who was this man? Was he hallucinating?

Let go. Things will only deteriorate if you do not. Let go. There was a pause, please... Let go. The man 'spoke' with almost a pleading edge to his voice, as if he were begging the Senju heir to follow his command. You do not know what you are doing... You do not know what he has done. I beg of you... Let go.

Hibiki clenched his jaw, tightened his chest, focused everything into just three words. "Who... Are... You?" Though Hibiki was more concerned as to why it felt like his body had been smacked repeatedly by a cheese grater, broken in half, and then smashed into a field of acid, he was somewhat curious as to what this thing was and whether or not it was some kind of hallucination.

I am as you should be. Please, let go. You and I may never get this chance again, you have never been so close as you are now - you can make the decision. Let go. Return to the sleep, cross the river, become pure. Things will only deteriorate if you do not.

Hibiki stared at the man with narrowed, confused eyes, before a blinding white light grew from behind him. The pain increased twofold, and the floating, gray-skinned man widened his eyes, as if in fear, or panic.

Please. Do not do this - do not wake up. Let go.

"Of... What?!" Croaked Hibiki, coughing violently as he fell to his knees, his body suddenly feeling a great deal heavier.

Your second life. Said the man, as Hibiki laboriously turned his head to the light. Things will only get worse if you do not.

Hibiki raised his head to look at the man, and slowly turned it to the bright light, as it continued to grow.

No... No, don't do it, don't wake up - I beg of you David, LET GO! He cried out.

Hibiki blinked, as the light enveloped him. What did he just -

Consciousness hit him like a ton of bricks.

Okay... Fuck flying. Groggily thought the Senju heir, as he slowly, exhaustedly, started to rouse from his forced slumber.

Wait... Wasn't it daylight? His eyes burned, as if they hadn't been closed or used in a while. He blinked hard, multiple times, staring up at the bright night sky from his position on his back on the ground. It was a nightly shade of jet black, with countless pearly white stars gleaming above him, as opposed to the bright blue just a few seconds ago. Okay, get - Just as soon as he'd started moving, did his entire body flare up in pain, from his face, to his chest, to his feet, it all seemed as if it had been set on fire and then ran across a cheese grater.

Hibiki slowly, laboriously, turned his head - which, he could feel, was being propped up by several large slabs of rubble - to look at his body. From what he felt behind and underneath him, he was in some kind of crater, he'd landed hard enough to break the stone ground and carve himself a decently sized gouge in the earth, and he must have bounced once or twice, judging from the pain all over his body and the position he'd landed in. After a few seconds, he finally managed to make his head loll about to a position where he could see everything, and he instantly wished he hadn't.

His front was burned and scorched black, and so much skin was missing from his chest that he could see his missing ribs. His entire body was covered in his own blood, his legs were shredded and burned, his shirt was just gone, and he didn't even want to consider what his face must look like. For everything his healing factor was doing, he must have either been lower on chakra than he'd initially realized, or his injuries were far more thorough than his likely blood-starved brain could process. He felt his heart begin beating faster, as he started breathing frantically, both of those factors woke his body up faster, slamming him with the full force of all of the ungodly pain he was dealing with.

Calm down, damn it! Hibiki forced himself to think, healing factor or not, I'll bleed the fuck out if I start panicking. Calm the fuck down! I got punched in the face by superman, surviving an explosion will - ARE THOSE MY FUCKING LUNGS?! Pale, fleshy sacks, covered in blood, were inflating in time with his inhales and exhales. He saw a few dark, burned patches, but they were slowly shrinking before his eyes - his healing factor working its magic, but nowhere near fast enough to remove this vision from his mind.

HOW THE FUCK AM I EVEN ALIVE?! Hibiki mentally screamed. HOW THE FUCK IS THIS POSSIBLE?! HOW DOES CHAKRA MAKE THIS POSSIBLE?! FUCK THIS, I CALL BULLSHIT, WAKE ME THE FUCK UP, RIGHT NOW! For his part, Hibiki was trying to calm down, but seeing his ribcage missing and his lungs exposed to open air - and to his own eyes, no less - was just a little disconcerting.

Even more terrifying were the noises he was hearing. Tortured groans, the sound of raw pain trying to escape from the heavily injured throat of a dying being. It took him a few seconds to realize that those noises were him trying to scream in pain - what was wrong with his face and his throat that he couldn't even scream?!

Fuck... Fuck! Calm down, damn it! Calm down! He mentally yelled at himself, this is just like at Headquarters, back home. If a victim has a bone sticking out - oh, FUCK this! This isn't some goddamn victim, I have CHAKRA, use it, damn it! He searched through everything he knew, for anything he could use.

"Ffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuck." He croaked, the effort taking almost everything he could do just to speak. Okay... Okay. I... My wolverine release... I can grow bones and make weapons with them... What the high holy hell is keeping me from replacing my own skeleton? All of Tsunade's medic books and his own knowledge, however faded it may be, from Back Home told him he could do this. He knew what a ribcage was supposed to look like, he knew how many ribs he was supposed to have, all he had to do was make the bones.

Hibiki clenched his eyes shut tight and concentrated. He felt that liquid, runny feeling that came with building new bones. When he made weaponized bones, it felt like skin, muscle, and sinew tearing - obviously that was impossible in the given circumstances, but it did give him a somewhat unique feeling - he had no skin, muscle or tendons in the way, so he could feel exactly what consciously making new bones felt like. The closest comparison he had was in his second life, when he'd been making the barrel for his rifle - to make sure he hadn't deformed or pierced it in any way, he'd placed it in a cold environment and chilled it, before he ran some warm water through it. Feeling the metal go from chilly to warm as the water traveled down it had been surreal, but it was what he equated this to - his chakra being the water, his lungs being the barrel of the gun. He could feel his chakra flowing inside his bones like a warm sludge, and soon he felt his bones growing outwards, recreating themselves from the miracle energy-source that chakra was.

After a few minutes, he let out the breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding - gasping for air, coughing and wheezing in great pain as he did so. He opened his eyes, and would have smiled if his entire face wouldn't combust whenever he moved it. His rib-cage was back, which was good, but he could physically feel the absence of his chakra, his body had burned a lot of it repairing his internal organs, he could feel it slowly working its magic on his dry throat.

Fuck... I don't... I can't... Shit. He knew concentrating would accelerate the process, but that burned more chakra, and he didn't have a lot of that to spend. What the fuck happened? He sighed, leaning his head back and letting it loll about, eventually coming face-to-face - so to speak - with his right arm, which was very obviously broken, given the unnatural angle it was bent, and the ungodly pain burning it.

Fuck. Broken arm, missing ribs, and his tibia was sticking out of his skin. His chest was missing, muscles and all, it felt like the right half of his face was gone too, given how raw and enflamed it felt. What the fuck hit him? He'd tanked Sparky-Sparky-Boom-Lad's explosions, Emi Miu's feminine rage, even Katsuo's monster strength, and none of that had done anything even remotely close to this.

What, did I run into a missile? Hug a block of C4? Inhale dynamite? What the - No second thoughts, he forced himself to reach over to his right arm with his left, and force the lopsided portion back into position, "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK did -" He coughed, falling back to his original position as his face, throat, chest, his entire body exploded into pain, and to make things worse, he started coughing his lungs out, which wasn't the best metaphor to use, given the fact that his lungs had been exposed to open air not three minutes ago. "I -" He hacked and wheezed, "-hit?" The ailing Senju heir gasped. He swore he felt his new ribs and his left arm creak and crack under the stress of his sudden movement.

Oh, would you look at that? His pants were shredded.

Well fuck my life, those were my favorite pair. Hopefully he could steal a pair from his clones, Something From Nothing being the cheat code it - he felt his heart drop. "Oh... god... damn it..." He croaked, realizing that this kind of shock, stress and pain would have translated to his clones, they all would have burst, or been knocked out. His mind was too foggy from the pain to focus on finding any new memories, but he was certain he was right, which mean his Chakra Clones back in Konoha were down for the count, killing that part of his plan for Kiri.

Had he been able to, Hibiki would have chuckled mirthlessly. If I even make it to fucking Kiri. He could feel his healing factor healing his throat, but eventually he would run out of chakra. Oh... You know, that may be it. He stared at his burst chest, maybe... I feel so drained, because my wolverine blood is using all of my chakra to keep my in a kind of... Chakra-stasis. Keeps me from dying, but it also means that if I run out, that's it - I'm dead.

"Shit." Croaked the Senju heir, leaning his head back in his impromptu rubble-bed. Where the fuck am I? My world for a Byakugan. He mentally shook his head, forcing his thoughts on the here and now. Okay... I know I can influence my healing factor... I need to change its focus. My throat can goddamn wait, I need my chest back... So, first order of business, fix my arm. He clenched his burning jaw. If I can fix my arm, I can focus the healing factor on my chest, and do a diagnosis technique, check for... Uh... I dunno... Fucking... Uh... Word... Shrapnel! He gasped, again not realizing he'd held his breath in an attempt to drive away the pain. God damn it... He clenched his eyes again and focused on the runny feeling running towards his arm. It took a few minutes, but eventually the sharp burning dulled down to a constant stinging. He clenched his right hand, and gave the arm a few test movements.

"Okay..." He croaked, laboriously lifting both arms and bringing them to his eyes, which he soon opened again. His arms were in bad shape, but the healing factor he'd focused on his right arm put it in a better position than his left, but that didn't remove the fact that his skin was red raw and pulsing blood in time with his heartbeat. He tried calling on medical chakra, but nothing happened.

Gah... Focus, damn it! He clenched his teeth and his hands, soon enough the green chakra sparked to life, though it was even more muted and grayish than usual. Alright... Now... My chest. He focused on his chest, as he brought his hands towards the charred skin, and slowly passed them over. The data from his diagnosis technique, while garbled, told him everything he'd expected: No skin, no muscle, scar tissue on his lungs and his heart indicative of shrapnel wounds, and most of his exposed skin was suffering from fourth degree burns.

Hibiki blinked.

Oh fuck - Just as he realized it, he screamed in pain as his healing factor started undoing the damage of his burns, repairing his nerve endings and exposing them to the full force of the damage to his body. If the pain before had been unbearable, then this was nightmarish, even hell-worthy. He didn't stop screaming as his chest slowly, lethargically knitted itself back together from the inside out.

Jesus fucking zombie Christ getting stabbed by Satan's salty toothpick in a FUCKING GAS-STATION RESTROOM THIS HURTS! Mentally screamed the Senju heir. What the fuck did this to me, how the hell did I survive, how the hell am I still alive, god, fuck, Jesus, shit, DAMN IT!

It felt like it took an eternity for his chest to close itself, he could see it happening before his eyes, it moved to slow that for several tortuous minutes, Hibiki convinced himself it wasn't healing, and he was only alive through spite, and his life would slip any moment now. After that eternity passed, however, Hibiki realized that his chest had healed. It was still bright red and felt like it was on fire, but sweet jesus it felt good to see skin on his chest, and not gore.

Hibiki's head fell back to the ground, his throat felt raw from all of the screaming, which compounded with whatever had happened earlier. He still felt like hell, but at least now he didn't have a chunk of his chest ripped out. Without really realizing it, he lost consciousness.

When next his eyes opened, it was broad daylight, he was freezing cold, and still in pain.

"Oh... Fuck. I'm still alive." Muttered Hibiki, slowly bringing his hand to his throat and rubbing it as he realized he'd been able to speak without his throat feeling like it was on fire, though that didn't fix the fact that his throat still felt raw and drier than sand. "Okay... Status report." He rasped in his native tongue. Left arm... He clenched his left hand and bent his arm, it was stiff as all hell and it still hurt, but it didn't feel like fire anymore. Good enough... Right arm. He did the same, and got about the same. Good enough... Neck. He turned his head to the left and right, bent it, his neck was stiff and it ached, but it didn't feel like his spine was crushed or that he had a thousand needles sticking out of it. Fine... Head... He raised his hand and dragged it across his face, pressing on it and feeling for anything out of the ordinary. A lot of the skin on the lower left side of his face and around his jaw was rough and tender, he must have gotten hit hard on his face, too; thank god he didn't have access to a mirror when he'd still been raw and dead-looking, he wouldn't have recognized himself.

Not as handsome as I used to be, but I'll be good. Chest... He looked down and rubbed his hands over his chest, it was sore and raw-feeling, and touching it made it sting like it would if he'd been punched, but feeling around, it didn't feel like anything was missing. Damn. He thought, might be slow... But I'll be damned if this damn healing factor isn't a life-saver. Leg - ah fuck. He hadn't fixed his leg yesterday, and the wound was still fresh and open, his tibia sticking out. Okay, I take it back. Why the fuck didn't it at least patch me up? And I thought I controlled my bones' durability. Why the fuck did it break? He leaned forward, bones creaking as he did so. He had no theories or explanations as to why his healing factor didn't at least close the skin around this wound, or why he hadn't died from blood-loss, but he'd think more on that later.

Alright... On three. He gulped thickly, and grabbed the bone, his leg flaring in pain as he did. One... Two - He shoved downwards, an audible 'crack' coming from his leg and a sickening sucking sound as the bone entered the leg again. He groaned loudly, jaw clenched tight as he set the bone and pressed hard as he waited for the healing factor to do its stuff.

Okay... Now that I'm not actively dying, where the fuck am I? He looked up and around. He saw the light gray sky above him, meeting the ground, making the world look empty until he found what looked like a building.

He squinted his eyes and leaned a bit closer, as if that would help. A building? Okay... I'd be tempted to think there might be something in there, but whatever hit me hit me good, and I hit the ground pretty fucking hard too, so there's no one in there, else they'd have looked for me... Buuuuut, that doesn't mean I won't find any new clothes. He looked back to his leg and lifted his blood-covered hands. His leg was swollen, but the wound had sealed itself up, he could tell the bone wasn't broken, and he could move his foot.

I must be really, really fucking low on chakra, if my leg is swelling up and not healing fast. He sighed, slowly dragging his legs closer to him and planting his hands on his lap.

"Alright... Fuck." He pressed down and slowly stood up, groaning into the curse word as he did so. He stood after a moment's struggle, he swayed on his feet, but he was able to stay on his feet. He tried to take a step forward, but the formerly broken leg was still pretty weak, and he stumbled forward.

After the bloody Senju heir regained his balance, he limped out of his crater and stretched his stiff back. Okay... I don't have enough chakra to fly... So... He inhaled deeply, "GEO -" He couldn't even finish the cry before he started hacking and wheezing. Bad idea... Thought the displaced man. Okay... Let's just get inside. Get a game plan then... Start a fucking fire! He straightened up and, rubbing his arms together and holding them to his core, he took a look around. The environment around him was largely empty, he'd landed on a wide expanse of rock, stretching several hundred meters away in a runway-like fashion, surrounded on both sides by vegetation, and in his immediate surroundings he could see some vegetation growing through the cracks in the rock, nature's way of flipping concrete the bird. It gave Hibiki fuzzy recollections of some of the apocalypse flicks he'd seen Back Home.

He turned towards the building he'd seen earlier and started limping towards it, biting through the cold as the frigid air blew at him, chilling all of his exposed bits, from his chest to his feet, and even his partially exposed genitals. Priority number one was finding some clothes, or something to burn, because sweet Jesus, it was cold. As he got closer, and got a better look at the massive stone building, he couldn't help but get a feeling of deja-vu. It looked familiar, towering over him with an ovular shape, and a set of enormous, rusty, rectangular bay-doors which, from afar, looked shut tight, but as he got closer he realized that they were partially open, earning a sigh of relief from the Senju heir, he wouldn't have to finagle his way inside.

He got to the building and had to sidle his way in. Inside was completely empty, from the ground around him to the curved ceiling, with its crisscrossing, heavily rusted support beams above him. He cursed to himself as he realized that there wasn't even a temperature difference in here, and what with how empty it was and how it looked like it would come down if he even breathed wrong, he cut his losses and didn't even try to loot the eerily silent place.

Stepping back outside, leaning heavily on his strong leg, Hibiki gazed around again. He didn't see much, a couple small buildings in the distance - one or two looked like they'd finally obeyed their rusted supporters and collapsed under their own weight - but other than that, not much else, until he saw what had to be the tallest building in eyesight. Even from this distance, Hibiki could tell it was enormous, and that it was probably supposed to be bigger, as it looked like it had had a chunk ripped out of it.

Well... Fuck it... What have I to lose? He started limping forward, thinking on what he saw - or, more appropriately, didn't see - in the building behind him. He might not have really paid attention, but who in the Elemental Nations used metal in their architecture? Most of what he'd seen had been made out of stone and wood, with some plaster mixed in here and there. The only times he'd ever seen metal were in machines or weapons; despite its clear advantage over wood, no one had ever really adopted it as a building material, even the frames of buildings were wooden.

Of course, he was in Amerigo, the eagles' land, so there was a lot of margin for error. For all he knew, he wasn't necessarily in another dimension, just another part of the world, and there used to be humans here. It wasn't too much of a stretch, if he really thought about it. After all, working in the hospital had exposed him to things he'd almost not even recognized - medical equipment. Actual, working, technology. Heart-rate monitors, low-end computers, it wasn't much, but it was a head and shoulders above the other paltry excuses for 'technology' he'd seen. Truly, outside of the lightbulb, the medical equipment had been the first bits of home he'd seen in his entire second life. So, if that existed in Konoha - and could arguably exist in the other villages - it wasn't too much of a stretch to conclude that people overseas figured out how to work with metal in their architecture. The Elemental Nations could be their version of pre-colonial America, and he could have stumbled upon their version of Europe, which would explain a lot, except for one thing:

Where did they go?

Hibiki stood still, a few dozen meters from his target building, staring up at the tall building that had gotten his attention earlier, eyes narrowed, mouth agape in silent contemplation. The building looked familiar, it stretched high into the sky, with a thick base and a top that ballooned outward, though it was missing that big chunk. If it had ever had any color, it had long since faded into a slush-like gray, and large rips and tears in its concrete base pockmarked the whole thing, it was old, and it had survived one hell of a beating, but the thing was still standing, and it looked like it was growing something too, if the vines and leaves growing up one of its sides had anything to say.

"Well... I don't really need an excuse to go inside..." Hibiki thought aloud, with a brief shrug of his stiff shoulders. "I do need to find some clothes..." Though with how old this and the other buildings were looking, he was starting to doubt anything he'd find would even be wearable at this point.

Against the urges of a few of his more primal instincts, Hibiki started searching for a door. There were a few small pillbox-buildings surrounding it it, and the one connected directly to the base had a convenient gouge ripped right out of its side, leading inside and hopefully into the tower. When he reached its threshold, Hibiki felt a chill run down his spine.

"Whoaa..." Muttered Hibiki, with one hand on one side of the v-shaped tear in the building, the other on his head, trying to shake that feeling. He suddenly felt like he was being watched, the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end. He turned around, gazing over his surroundings, looking to the sky, looking for any eagles flying in to find him. Nothing.

Weird... Had he had the chakra to spare, he would have flipped on his Sharingan and looked for any ambient chakra, but even though the drain on his reserves was getting smaller and smaller with continued use, he wanted all of his remaining chakra going to his healing factor, so he just kept his wits about him as he ambled inside, and froze.

There were skeletons everywhere, hiding behind overturned desks and what Hibiki could guess was sandbags, with the number of skeletons getting larger the closer they got to the door leading to the tower. They all were wearing tattered, faded clothing, but what had Hibiki's eyes wide was what they had clutched in their hands, and what his foot had brushed against upon entering. Clutched in their dead hands were rifles, and scattered about the floor was a sea of spent, heavily rusted, even crumbling shell casings.

"What... The... fuck?"

From the way they were stacked up, it looked like they were trying to guard from a frontal offensive - he looked to his left and confirmed that there was indeed a doorway there, though it had long since rusted off of its hinges and was now resting on the ground. Whatever they had been fighting, they had been trying to keep them out of the tower; the way they were all turned towards Hibiki's impromptu entrance, it looked like they'd been blindsided by an attack from their left.

Hibiki's gaze left the dead, and went to the doorway they were guarding, his brain having long since ground to a halt. What were they guarding? He blinked once and started limping further inside. There were less corpses in the spiraling staircase, but there were still skeletons and spent casings littering the ground. More than once, as Hibiki walked upwards, his bare foot crashed through the rotting wood, but careful, shinobi-like steps let him get to the top, where again he froze.

The top of the tower had a ring of desks lining the walls, with one other desk in the center of the room. All of these desks had ancient, rusted, dilapidated monitors on them, and keyboards that had long since had their letters weathered off. Hibiki felt his heart picking up as, unbidden, the name for this place came to mind. He was in a tower, with a three hundred and sixty degree view of the surrounding area, with the long expanse of concrete in prominent view. The concrete, however, wasn't just a random placement of nature, it was by design. God didn't build in straight lines. He wasn't looking at some rocky expanse, he was looking at a runway. He wasn't in some random building, he was in an air-traffic control tower.

He wasn't in an abandoned village, he was in the nerve-center of a very dead airport.