"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, so therefore, you don't."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that" and he promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
--Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Naruto stood frozen for a moment as Chronos shook his hand enthusiastically; his brain was having trouble processing what he had just heard.
"You sell weed?"
Chronos grinned wider, "I can proudly claim that I sell any and every variety that ever has been or ever will be smoked. One of the bonuses of controlling time, my little amigo, is that I travel to any time I want. I got shit here that won't be invented for hundreds of years"
"So then," Naruto asked, intrigued, "who do you sell it to?"
"Oh, I have a few stores in the physical realm that I let handle the actual selling. I just provide the goods."
Sarutobi was about to try getting the conversation back on track, but Naruto's curiosity had been piqued.
"But you don't need money, so why run businesses?"
Chronos threw his arm over Naruto's shoulder and held up his pipe, "It's not about money, my pint sized friend, but about spreading the joy of cannabis to the world! It's about teaching people love and peace, all through the power of weed!"
Naruto rubbed his head sheepishly, "Honestly, now I feel left out having never tried it…"
Chronos looked horrified, "WHAT! To hear such a thing tears at me like…something sharp…that tears…"
Realizing that he was maybe not the best at making up similes, Chronos tried a more direct approach, "We must solve this problem of weed deprivation immediately, and for the right hand of death, I do believe I could give just a small free samp…"
"There shall be," Sarutobi said firmly as he grabbed Chronos' pipe, "absolutely NO more weed smoked by anyone today."
Chronos looked slightly put off, but was used to what he called Sarutobi's 'intolerant ways'.
"I suppose then that you'll be wanting some of my extra special double whammy astral bullets?"
Sarutobi nodded, "Unless you have the extra special triple whammys done…?"
"Sadly, no, they're taking me a bit longer than expected to develop. The more I work on these, the more I realize how much of a pain it is to actually have to design something from scratch instead of just stealing it from the future."
Naruto blinked, "Extra special double whammy?"
Chronos snatched back his pipe from Sarutobi and went over to one of his shelves, "Hey, I create them, so I get to name them however I want. If you want to complain, make your ammo yourself, it's not like I get paid to do it."
He rifled through piles of what, to Naruto, were indescribable objects, finally pulling out of the mess a small cardboard box. Chronos casually tossed the box over his shoulder and Sarutobi dove for it, managing to catch it inches above the ground.
"Are you out of your MIND?"
"Probably," Chronos said amiably.
Naruto crossed his arms and tried to think, "What's so special about that little box?"
"This box contains astral bullets," Sarutobi said humorlessly, "which are extremely dangerous if not handled carefully!"
Chronos sighed theatrically, "Do you see, Naruto, what I have to deal with? No one ever thanks me for my work, they always just criticize me."
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Sasuke drifted through sleep contentedly, wandering through a great empty dreamscape.
He walked slowly forward, feeling an inexplicable apprehension. Then he saw her.
Her body was partially obscured by that mysterious force that obscures things in dreams, but he felt himself sure that she was beautiful beyond compare. For the first time in his life, he was in love.
He wanted to run forward and embrace her, but he was suddenly struck by how sad she looked. It was a mystery how he knew she looked sad when he couldn't see her face, but he was way past logic at this point, wanting nothing more than to make her happy again.
He ran towards her, but never seemed to get any closer, even as she spoke.
"Why, Sasuke... Why did you leave?"
"I didn't mean to, I swear!"
"Don't lie to me Sasuke... You left because you wanted Orochimaru's power, there's no use denying it now."
The Uchiha tried fruitlessly to think of something to say, but the woman started to slowly dissolve.
"Wait! Don't go."
The mystery woman laughed bitterly, "That's one hell of a thing for you to say, Uchiha Sasuke. If you want to see me so badly, come back to Konoha and seek me out."
Then, she was gone.
His dream started to blur, and when Sasuke next opened his eyes he was fully awake. He pushed himself into a sitting position and pondered his dream, finally looking up at the sky, "If that's what it takes to find you, then return I will!"
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Far away within the walls of the Hidden Leaf, Tsunade lay in bed. It had been a strange dream to be sure, but she had an unsettling feeling that it had been something more than a dream.
Invisible to her human eye, a purple robed figure wearing dark sunglasses stood hovering a few feet above her bed.
"Fucknuts... Jeff is going to want to hear about this."
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
"I still don't quite get it" Naruto said slowly, "why do astral bullets only work on Devils and Angels?"
The three supernaturals were sitting around a small table in one of Chronos' seemingly innumerable rooms, and Naruto was being given a crash course in astral weaponry.
Sarutobi sighed,"Ok, I'll explain it a different way this time. Only the most powerful of beings can actually move their bodies between the planes, and everyone else must always be connected to their home dimension. Souls cannot be truly destroyed, and any damage they sustain will eventually heal, but it takes a great deal of focus to manifest in an alien dimension; so if a demon or angel takes enough damage, it gets sucked back to hell or heaven. Since the astral plane is our home, we could shoot each other forever and it wouldn't have any permanent effect."
"Though," Chronos interrupted, "I highly recommend you don't do that, since being hit with an astral bullet really hurts."
"Yeah, I already got the 'shooting myself is bad' lecture from the old man earlier."
Chronos calmly picked up one of the weapons on the table and fired a short burst into Naruto's foot.
He thrashed, yelled, cursed, and generally made a fuss for a few seconds, then his leg reformed and he grudgingly got up and sat in his chair again, "Point made."
Sarutobi glared, "That was maybe a little excessive Chro..."
There was a shift in the dimensional fabric and a bald black man shimmered into existence wearing purple robes identical to those of Chronos and landed on the table.
"THE ALMIGHTY MORPHEUS HAS ARRIVED!"
Chronos jumped up, "Duuuuuuuude!"
Sarutobi's head hit the table, "Oh bloody hell."
The newcomer, however, ignored them both and went straight for Naruto, "I know your probably confused right now, young man, but you only have two options."
"Does either of them involve you getting out of my personal space?"
The man seemed to have not heard him and shoved his hands forward towards Naruto's face, "Take the red pill and you'll wake up tomorrow with a headache on a beach laying next to a strangely effeminate man. Take the blue pill and you'll receive a visit from a hallucinogenic bunny who will tell you to kill yourself by slitting your wrist with a baseball bat. So... which is it going to be?"
Sarutobi whispered a couple words under his breath and Morpheus made an 'urk' sound as he was suddenly unable to move. Predicting what was about to happen, Naruto pushed his chair away from the table as the large man fell flat on his face.
Chronos rushed to help his like-robed companion up and glared at the ex-hokage, "That was cold, man."
"I've said it before and I'll continue to say it until it sinks into your thick skulls: Giving people with power over fate mind altering drugs is not only exceedingly stupid, it's also against Jeff's rules."
"You need to chill out a bit, what Jeff doesn't know can't hurt him, or more importantly, me."
Sarutobi mumbled something and Morpheus regained the use of his limbs, "As much fun as it is to see you, if you could get straight to the point we'd all appreciate it."
"There's a small problem involving the Hokage. I've already run it by Jeff, and he told me to come here."
Morpheus now had everyone's full attention, "I was sifting through Godaime's dreams earlier, and if I'm not mistaken, and I very rarely am when it comes to these things, her fate has been seriously fucked up."
Chronos pondered for a moment, "How sure are you?"
"Is it normal for her to be sharing dreams of romantic longing with a one Uchiha Sasuke?"
Naruto and Sandaime's eyes were wide as saucers, and they shook their heads in unison.
"Then I'm pretty sure."
"Wow..." Naruto said slowly, "this is disturbing on so many levels."
Sarutobi grabbed his Tec-9 and their new supply of astral bullets, then shoved them into his robes, "Sorry to go so soon, but we really need to deal with this."
Chronos gave a little salute, "No problem-o, dudes. Have fun."
"Since we always enjoy dealing with fatalistic train wrecks."
Naruto got kind of pulled along by Sarutobi's sudden energy and made sure to pick up his own weapon and follow lest he be left behind. The two bounded up the stairs and back out the door.
"Do we really have to do this now?"
"Yes. If the Fatum Adnexus set up Sasuke and Tsunade to be... romantically interested in each other, it will manifest first in the weaker willed of the two, and he will start heading back towards Konoha immediately, if he hasn't already."
"Didn't you say this kind of thing is easy to fix?"
"It varies, because we can't modify the same person's stream twice in one day. This one is going to be tricky since the longer we leave it the more complex it's going to get."
"So then why are we standing here, not moving?"
"Because we're waiting for..."
There was a now familiar ripple, and Jeff appeared next to them, "A tangle on your first fate shift, Naruto-kun? This must be a record of some sort."
"I didn't mean to, I swear."
"These aren't the kinds of things we can control, so let's try and sort this out. Any ideas, Sarutobi?"
"Tsunade won't start to feel the effects for at least another twenty four hours, and so if we can correct this before then she'll just brush her dream off as a random occurrence. Sasuke is another matter entirely, and how we deal with him will depend on whether the two of them recognized each other in the dream. Do we have info on that?"
Morpheus' head popped out of Chronos' door for a second, "By the way, they didn't recognize each other in the dream."
The door slammed as he withdrew and Naruto looked around strangely, "What was that?"
"Since we essentially do the legwork for the powers that be, they help us out by giving us an innate luck. You'll get used to things like that."
Jeff tapped his chin, "So this might yet be resolved without the immense pain in the ass of getting any memory alterations done. Can you two handle it?"
Sarutobi nodded, "Yes sir."
"Good, because I have to oversee some peace negotiations in Hidden Cloud, and nowhere will you find a group of angrier people than in Hidden Cloud. It's seriously ridiculous, they're not even angry about anything, just in general."
Jeff vanished again, and Naruto suddenly felt the world spin as Sandaime took hold of his wrist and they teleported.
They landed in a somewhat forested area, and Naruto shook off his recurring nausea, "Am I the only one who finds it strange that we're trying to stop Sasuke from falling madly in love with Tsunade because of a jutsu I did?"
"This kind of thing is usual fare for us. You'd be surprised how much work it is just to keep the physical world in working order."
"So then, where are we?"
"We're directly between Sasuke and Konoha, so he should be passing by here in just a couple of minutes."
"Ok, then I have a question. What was with that weird Morpheus guy?"
"I don't know him very well myself, but he's the lord of dreams, which is a far more powerful position than one might think, and he works for Chronos."
"I meant the thing with the multi-colored pills."
"I don't know myself, but it's something he always does, and he never tells anyone what he actually puts into them."
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Sasuke ran through the forest excitedly, "Wait for me, my unknown goddess of desire!"
It was at this point that the little voice in his head, which still sounded like Kakashi, decided to make its presence known.
"This really isn't very smart, you know."
"You stay out of this. No little imaginary voice in my head could ever understand the love we share."
"Indeed."Said a second voice, "I cannot understand your actions, captain. As I find them to be highly illogical."
"Who the hell are you?"
"I am your sense of logic, and I must object to our current path, as I find there to be no valid reason for your sudden change of course."
"Love doesn't need a reason!"
"But seriously", Kakashi-voice interjected, "Spock has a valid point. You don't even know who you're running towards. What if she's like seventy?"
"I will love her anyway, so both of you shut up!"
Sasuke suddenly had the distinct impression that the second voice was arching a pointed eyebrow, "I believe it possible that you are in denial about the irrationality of your actions, and are thus making a futile attempt to justify them."
"That's right! I completely agree with whatever it was that he just said."
"You laugh now, but just wait! The love I share with... whatever her name turns out to be... will be unstoppable!"
Sasuke unknowingly ran right past Sarutobi and Naruto, both of whom watched his passing with concern.
"You know," Naruto said, "I used to look up to that guy."
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Zabuza was really sick of white.
Really REALLY sick of white.
It was like they had taken a normal city, and then gone crazy with a few million gallons of white paint. He supposed heaven was supposed to be a pure and stuff, but they could have at least picked a more interesting color.
He considered (and not for the first time) whether he might not have been better off going to hell, but he had heard from one of his angelic superiors that his crimes would have warranted a couple hundred years being tortured by cackling devils, and figured that even a glaringly white city filled with do-gooders would be better than that.
Zabuza was currently standing just outside his house, and he suddenly saw the angel he had been waiting for.
Samiel was well known as one of the greatest angels of all time, and trying to build on this success, his parents had named their second son Samiam. Unfortunately, Samiam turned out to be a pretty crappy fighter, and so had been designated as a courier.
Every week, said courier was sent out with all the assignments for the various angelic warriors, and every week Zabuza waited with rapt anticipation for one of the few breaches in the contiguous stream of boredom.
"Please tell me there's something in need of smiting this week."
"Got lot's for you. Tyriel was very impressed with your recent work record, and particularly your self-motivation."
Samiam passed over a stack of papers and Zabuza started to leaf through them, "What can I say; I just love to smite the evil-doers."
"Ahem...yes, well, you're certainly good at it."
"Oh, I have a problem with one of these assignments."
"What?"
"See, it involves working in a house, and with a mouse, and as you know..."
Knowing full well what was coming, Samiam just glared.
"I would not, could not, in a house. I would not, could not, with a mouse."
"I'm leaving now."
"I would not eat them here or there, I would not eat them anywhere."
"Go to hell."
Zabuza yelled the last words as the other angel flew off, "I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam-I-am."
Content that he had pissed off at least one quite literally holier than thou asshole that day, the now rather inappropriately named devil of the hidden mist made his way back inside.
"Were you being rude to Samiam again, Zabuza-sama?"
"Rude? Really, Haku, what kind of angel do you take me for?"
"The kind who takes great pleasure from mocking his fellow warriors of light."
Ignoring Haku, he continued to sift through his list of tasks, he found one that would demand his immediate attention, "Sorry Haku, gotta run. There's one here that demands my immediate attention."
"Don't worry about me, I'm going down to see the new angels today and help them adapt."
"You really are ridiculously benevolent."
Haku smiled brightly, "Of course."
"Ok, stop that. The purity you're emanating is getting on my nerves."
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
He flew easily through the sky, his wings of light carrying him high above the city of angels as he made his way to gate 37E. There were many gates into heaven, and one of
his assignments this morning had been about a small dispute going on at the 37th gate on the east wall of the city.
Spotting it, Zabuza went into a nose dive, dropping in altitude at a truly astounding rate and landing solidly with both feet. One of the border angels was apparently being yelled at by a group of six people, all of whom were ignoring Zabuza's arrival.
Not the kind of angel to waste time, he raised his sword into the air and hit a small button on the hilt, causing flames to flare up and surround the blade with a rather spectacular show of pyrotechnic force.
"Alright, what's going on here?"
The border guard sighed in relief, "There seems to be some confusion as to whether these people get let in."
Zabuza released the button and the flames vanished, "You have their files?"
"Yes sir."
"Well, let's see them."
Snatching the files from the quaking hand of the smaller angel, Zabuza flipped open the first one, "Kimimaro?"
"Here."
Most people would have found the white haired man a bit girly, he supposed, but Zabuza was somewhat desensitized to girly men. He started to skim through the file, and quickly noticed that something was not quite right.
"So let me get this straight, you had a horrible childhood, suffered your entire life from a crippling disease, devoted yourself entirely to the service of another person, and finally died from said crippling disease while trying with all your heart to protect the dream of the person you had devoted your life to?"
"Yes sir."
"Alright, you're in. Next one: Tayuya?"
A red haired girl stepped forward, but appeared to be refusing to speak.
"Ooh, you're pretty close, this could go either way."
Zabuza flipped the page and snickered slightly, causing Tayuya to glare at him, "What's so funny, bastard?"
"You were killed by a tree."
"It was a bunch of trees."
"It says here that the cause of death was 'Tree'."
The four armed one elbowed his way forward, "What do you mean, tree? How was she killed by a tree?"
Zabuza raised a non-existent eyebrow, "I would imagine it fell on her, as trees are large and heavy things."
"Don't get smart with me, bastard!" One of his four arms grabbed Zabuza's shirt, "I'll kill you!"
Zabuza grinned a slow and decidedly evil grin, then snapped his fingers.
With ironically little fanfare, a hole opened up in the ground and a few fiery tendrils shot out, wrapped around Kidoumaru, and sucked him down into the earth.
Almost immediately the white haired twins charged him, and with another snap of the fingers, they too disappeared into the ground. Zabuza was just starting to have fun when he suddenly went flying as Jiroubou applied his large and meaty fist to the side of his head.
Unfortunately for the fat orange haired man, his victory would be short lived. White tendrils of energy twisted through the air as Zabuza re-formed his wings and steadied himself. He drew his blade, hit 'the button' and sent a wave of flame tearing across the landscape.
Tayuya and Kimimaro looked at the pile of ash that had just been Jiroubou, then at the ground where the others had been sucked down, and tactically decided to be cooperative.
The border guard angel was looking at him with awe, "Amazing..."
"It's just a matter of liking what I do. Be sure to send that fat guy down to hell with his buddies when he gets himself back together, ok?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Good, now you two," he looked at the remaining two of the sound five (or six, depending on your count), "come with me. I have to get you people to the orientation building, and I have a lot more work to do today."
/-/-/-/-/Meanwhile, In Hell/-/-/-/-/
Ukon, Sakon, and Kidoumaru fell through the air and hit the ground in a heap. Slowly picking themselves up, they realized that they were surrounded by people who appeared to be... dancing?
Mmmbop,
ba duba dop ba do bop,
Ba duba dop ba do bop,
Ba duba dop ba
do. Oh yeah,
The three sound nins looked around in horror, all wondering what fiend could have come up with such a horrid place.
A few hundred feet away, the Kyuubi sat sulking next to his boom box. Things had gone well with the Succubus at first, but then he had found himself unable to resist temptation and one of his tails had brushed over her posterior. Needless to say, things had gone downhill from there.
He spared a moment during his moping to glance over at his dancing minions, and suddenly felt a lot better.
"Uh oh... Do I see some people not dancing?"
It took exactly 1.6 seconds for everyone in the massive cavern to focus their gazes on the three sound nin, who were looking quite confused.
"It looks like I was right, we have some non-dancers... and you all know what that means, don't you?"
A moan of anguish rose from the crowd, "That's right! We're starting the playlist over from the beginning!"
Sakon stared up at the beast, "I don't believe it... we're in hell."
Ukon looked over at his brother, "Literally or figuratively?"
"Both, I think."
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Author's Notes: Just as an experiment, I downloaded "Mmm Bop" and set it to constant repeat on my computer while I went about writting, net surfing, and doing homework. I lasted just over three hours, though I think have could longer except that I was working on an essay and killed the song because it was bothering me when I was having problems with a thesis statement.
It's been porevn taht polepe can eislay raed wdros wtih teh mdilde ltertes mxeid up as lnog as the fsirt and lsat lretets are the smae, but it tnurs out taht the smae is not ture of wtirnig. In fcat,wtirnig tihs way is a mjaor pian teh ass. So I'm going to stop now.
Moving on, I really like chicken fried rice. I could seriously eat it three meals a day and never get tired of it.
In fact, I think I'm going to go eat some right now.
