The Unsung Story of the Inconspicuous
A/N: Why hello there! Sorry for the delay, this one was a bit tricky. In other news, I am going to be internet-less for several weeks, so when there are no updates, do not think I have abandoned you!
Don't own, won't profit.
So this is where it starts.
Naruto woke up the same way he always did; upside-down and hanging off his bed. He yawned hugely and stretched his limbs out in all directions, enjoying the pull of muscles that had been still for hours, then sort of half-rolled out of bed and into a standing position. He made himself a questionably nutritious breakfast of instant ramen, shuddering at the sudden reminder of Sakura's reprimanding lecture on the matter, but disinclined to go out and get anything else. He'd only have a few days before the damn Pervert-Sage decided to go on the move again, so he was gonna make them count! Starting by swinging by and seeing Sakura at work. Maybe she'd want to go to lunch with him? It had been ages since they'd gone anywhere together...
Lost in his thoughts, Naruto found himself finishing his morning routine on autopilot, grinning the entire time, which wasn't particularly unusual. He eventually ended up standing at the foot of the stairs that led to his apartment, rubbing the back of his neck as he decided where to go first, who to see.
Should he go find Sakura, or try and track down some of the others and go have lunch with her later instead? The Plot at his feet, an unwelcome interloper to his own, much larger narrative, tugged him towards the village and to the safety of other people; people not involved in a small side-story happening outside Konoha limits. It did not belong to him and did not want him to interfere, so the Gairano Plot gently, inevitably steered him a few steps towards the heart of the village before he stopped, and, violating every law set by the Genematrix, thought twice. He thought of how pleased Sakura would be to see him, and how much he had missed her, and made an impossible decision.
He turned, and a single strand snapped free of the elaborate web at his feet.
And this is where it all starts to unravel.
The first thread frays slowly, at first.
Awareness struck as a sudden pain, her mind suddenly recognizing the ache in her limbs, the dryness of her throat, her brain suddenly perceiving the world again. Her chest was burning. The world was smaller than she had expected when she regained control of herself.
Raiku blinked slowly, eyes focusing. The pull of the electrical current had slowly weakened and she realized she was no longer in Konoha, the feeling of it almost disappearing altogether but she could feel where it was over the hill. A million connections and conductors working and pulling, but without it hanging over her she was adrift, thoughts flashing past and diffusing into the air too quickly to retain any value. Her mind was spreading out and she ached like she'd been training too hard, but she could finally think, she was finally there.
But where…?
Raiku tried to lift her head and pain rocketed down her spine, making her gasp. She could feel it burning under her skin, could feel her energy struggling to reassert itself. That wasn't right, that wasn't supposed to be happening. She wasn't supposed to be awake. She wasn't supposed to be awake until this was all over. She tried to see where she was, and found nothing familiar.
What was going on?
'Sorry,' the hospital receptionist told Naruto with a strained smile. 'She's not in at the moment. She's out with the Hokage for training.'
Naruto was so used to the brittle cheer and wary looks that he didn't even notice, sending her a cheerful grin in return. 'Okay! Where?'
'I'm afraid I don't know,' the woman replied, shuffling some papers in an attempt to look busy.
Naruto leaned forward over the desk in a way that always worked for Kakashi. 'Really?' he wheedled, giving her his best puppy eyes.
Her expression flattened. Well, Naruto thought, it was worth a shot. He considered his options, a black tendril of narrative curling, unseen, up his leg. Well, it suggested, that was that, then. He'd have to wait, but Sakura would surely be happy enough to see him later. Hm, was Shikamaru back in town yet-
But wait, Naruto thought rather more autonomously, overriding its attempt at damage control effortlessly. He could always just meet up with Sakura and Tsunade!
No- the Plot tightened, enmeshing his feet in its intricate mass- they definitely would not like that at all. That, he thought reluctantly, was not a good idea.
Or, he grinned to himself, it was the best idea.
The Plot hastily rearranged itself to accommodate this new decision, holes beginning to appear in its solid weave.
'Do you know when she'll be back?' he tried instead. He could use that to figure out where she was! Good job, Naruto, he nodded.
The woman sniffed. 'The Hokage's very busy. They've had to reschedule quite a few things because of the weather, and she's out of the village for most of today.'
'Out of the village?' a slightly rougher voice asked. Naruto turned to look over his shoulder. It was the redhead, the one with freckles. Daisuke? No, wait, it was way weirder than that. Daisukenori? Daisukenojo, he remembered. The shorter boy was looking at them with strange intensity. But he was a shinobi, so that was normal.
'Out of the village,' she repeated tersely, shooting them both a disapproving look. 'She has a lot to do before the storm makes life difficult, so don't you go making it worse!'
Naruto laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck, knowing he'd been caught. Nothing for it, then. He took a step along a narrative-black path, around Daisukenojo, before he stopped in the grip of a second thought.
He didn't know Daisukenojo, so he'd better just keep going. He might be there to see a family member.
Or, he thought, and when he stopped and turned his head to look at Daisukenojo, the Plot thread pulled taut across his body began to fray.
'Are you here to see Raiku?' he asked Daisukenojo, who nodded distractedly. It had been a shot in the dark, but since it was usually Raiku who got hurt in their team...
'She's not here either,' the receptionist sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Daisukenojo's head jerked up so that he could stare at her. 'What?'
The woman raised her eyebrows challengingly, daring him to push the envelope, but Naruto was distracted by how white Daisuke had gone under the freckles. 'Did I not just explain the weather to you? Do you not own a radio? Everything's been rescheduled.'
Hatori froze for a moment, then turned on his heel and sprinted in the opposite direction as though hell itself was chasing after him.
Naruto stared after him, blinking in surprise, oblivious to the black mass turning in on itself and disintegrating at the edges. After a moment he shrugged and padded off out of the hospital doors, more determined than ever to find Sakura. The fraying strand of storyline snapped and vanished into nothing.
The second strand follows quickly, ripping free with a sound like a scream.
'Yamada!'
Ryuu jerked awake with a start from where he had been semi-comatose on Yamada's uncomfortable armchair, having fallen asleep the previous night in the middle of planning. From the muffled noise Neji made of complaint somewhere nearby, at least he hadn't been the only-
'Yamada!' Daisukenojo's voice shouted again, closer this time, and then he burst into the room just in time for Yamada to lunge upright on the couch. His freckles were almost invisible against his flush, the younger boy panting and his eyes feverishly bright.
"What?!" Yamada half-demanded, half-groaned.
'Procedure… weather!' Daisukenojo forced out, bent double and trying to get his breath back. There was a sudden sinking feeling in Ryuu's chest.
"What about it?" Yamada grumbled, swinging his legs over to rest his feet on the ground as the couch creaked alarmingly under his weight.
'Storm!' Daisukenojo panted, grabbing the doorframe to support himself.
'It's forecast for tomorrow,' Neji pointed out, voice irritatingly normal for someone who'd just been sleeping with his head on a desk.
Daisukenojo nodded furiously, so much so that Ryuu feared he would topple over and then not get any information out. 'Tomorrow! So the … the…' he gasped. 'It's happening now!'
'What is?' Ryuu grumbled.
Daisukenojo looked like he desperately wanted to roll his eyes but didn't trust himself not to fall over. 'Raiku!'
There was a brief pause, and then the room exploded with movement.
The first begins to pick up speed, vanishing from the weave's outer layers and leaving holes that start to gape and bleed.
Raiku moved slightly, trying to reacquaint herself with her limbs and figure out where she was. Why was she awake?
Had something gone wrong?
She was lying on the ground and it was warm, the air almost sweltering. She didn't understand what she was looking at, at first; a dark, turbulent grey above and silver around. She tried to lift her head off the dirt and almost immediately let it fall back again, her neck and shoulders screaming at the feeling. Walls, but she was on bare earth? She could feel it underneath her; could feel energy hurtling and dragging out of her, pulled in all directions. It was so peculiar to be able to feel the earth on her skin, so accustomed was she to being so well-covered.
They were made of metal, but that was the sky? Raiku pieced her situation together slowly, painfully, a place high in her chest burning to the point of distraction. So. Metal walls on the ground, with no roof. This was an oddly hands-off procedure, some part of her noted, the rest of her not quite there yet. She let out a wheezing breath as the pain in her chest got more and more intense, beginning to feel heavy and smothering.
How was this supposed to help her; stuffing her in a lidless metal box?When it looked like bad weather, she noted with an increasingly perturbed eye and stubbornly forcing air into her lungs in a series of agonizing breaths. What, were they going to wait for the rain and for the little enclosure to fill with water and drown it out-
Wait. Her already labored breathing faltered when her new awareness finally settled in fully, feeling a familiar stretch and ache under her skin, that familiar thrumming down her spine.
'You can't be serious,' Sakura said through lips that felt strangely numb. 'That's… you can't be-,'
'If you don't have the stomach for it,' Tsunade began, amber eyes flinty and her arms folded across her chest as she stood watching Shizune and another, more technologically minded assistant. They were prepping a large, final sheet of thick, carefully reinforced metal, in addition to the four pieces arranged as walls around the unconscious Raiku, hiding her from view. Beyond her, the Head Gairano watched his daughter's prison sit in the middle of the vast empty field with an inscrutable expression, barely squinting against the harsh wind that was buffeting them.
'No,' Sakura said hastily, mind reeling but her gut insisting that yes, she could do this. 'I do, I just can't-,'
Tsunade cut her off again, tone leaving no room for argument.
'If you do, you can.'
Next to her, Raiku's father said nothing.
Naruto passed out of the gates, sending Izumo a cheerful wave and sticking his hands in his pockets. He wasn't as good at this chakra sensing thing as Kakashi was, and he couldn't use the summon dogs, obviously, but he still thought this was a pretty good plan.
He smiled to himself, pacing picking up a little from his enthusiasm. He had sniffed around the hospital and the Hokage's office for a while and found nothing, until he'd overheard a conversation about the procedure happening today. Something about a big field?
And he knew exactly where the best place to find one of those was.
So it turned out his years of misadventure were coming in handy after all! He snickered. Take that, literally everybody. Circling around the village wall at his quick pace, it didn't take long for Naruto to pick up traces of the Hokage's chakra in the air.
He sped up even further, every meter dragging the Plot unwillingly behind him, every step dragging threads free and ripping deeper holes.
At the heart of it, the first thread splits and splinters into nothing. Untethered, the other strings of causality bunch and snarl until it begins to tear itself apart.
Raiku shook her head and swallowed, the phantom taste of ash clogging her throat, flickers of memory making her tense in remembered panic of can'tbreathwanttolivecan'tmove-
No.
They wouldn't.
The heartbeat in her ears was starting to slow down after it had skyrocketed only minutes before, each beat dragging slightly more lethargically than the last, her hard-won consciousness starting to go dark at the edges.
But this was not the time she was supposed to be in control.
Raiku struggled to remember what was supposed to happen, because it wasn't supposed to be her, it was supposed to be the Plot taking care of this! She wasn't to wake up before it was all over, but- no, there was no time to think of what should have happened. The Plot was supposed to find the point at which her Device joined to her mind, and to make it easy for them to separate.
Now, she would have to do it on her own.
The walls closing in and her vision going dark, Raiku tried so hard to feel the divide between herself and the Plot Device, that point at which everything that was Raiku and everything that was not met together. Tried so hard to feel it in herself so that she could release it where it was being dragged out of her and away, so that it could leave her behind in peace, but she couldn't focus and she was running out of time and she couldn't find anything but-
Tsunade looked at the sky and squinted slightly. They'd rescheduled because they'd been promised that the weather would hold, but if this wasn't over soon, she'd have some angry conversations to organize. She hadn't wanted to do it until the nasty weather was over, but there was no indication that the damage was reversible at this stage, let alone however far into the future their next available time would be.
There just wasn't enough time.
She caught Shizune's eye and nodded once, decisively, the younger woman and the other man immediately clearing to a safe distance.
In her hand, she could feel a small pulse, the chakra seal of her work beating faintly in her palm. She slowly and carefully closed her hand and felt it flutter. And she concentrated on her chakra intently because she was going to have to be so very, very careful or she would crush her target inside the girl's chest, and there could be no coming back from that. So she held her hand firm and the girl's life in it, and slowly drew down, until she couldn't feel the answering pressure of a heartbeat anymore.
Tsunade watched the incomplete Faraday cage intently, waiting for a response, waiting for the reaction that she had predicted.
Something uneasy started to rise in her as the silence stretched on and she looked to her right. 'Gairano, you-,'
Faintly at first, then growing stronger quickly, the earth began to shake under her feet and she broke off, looking down and keeping her hand perfectly frozen. Shizune rose from her cover far across the field- this was the chance, wasn't it? They had to finish the cage, but Tsunade shook her head sharply, trusting her instincts immediately and opening her mouth to tell that stupid girl to get back under cover and then-
There was a sound so loud it seemed to bypass Tsunade's ears and go directly into her bones, a crack of thunder that shook every atom in her body painfully and made her ears explode with agony and a light- a column, an explosion of white hurtling upwards from inside the confines of the incomplete cage and she had to close her eyes because it burned-
And oh, Raiku thought, in that split-second between the breath and the darkness and everything she was pouring out of her skin; it had been her all along.
With a sharp flare of chakra, the metal lid of the cage slid into place and sealed, closing on the silent emptiness inside.
Not right.
Not right.
Not right, Gairano thought to himself again and again in a determined mantra, using it to drag himself out of the strange daze that the sensory overload of the explosion had caused in him. He dragged himself back to his feet at the same time, feeling his hands shake as he pulled himself up from the dirt.
Naruto dragged himself upright and staggering over to where Sakura was crouching, her hands over her ears and eyes screwed shut. 'Sakura!' he yelled over the sudden deafness, shaking his head as though it could shake off whatever was still making the world hazy. 'Hey! Are. You. Okay!?' he asked with the exaggerated care of someone still in shock. He only took his eyes off her at the sound of a hoarse male yell.
Gairano had a hand on Tsunade's shoulder and was trying to make her look at him, even though it looked like his own, abruptly bloodshot eyes were painful to keep open. 'My daughter!' Naruto heard, the sound almost lost to the ringing in his ears. The rest was lost in an incoherent, loud mass, until the world started to clear a bit. The Gairano gripped the Hokage tighter, the older woman finally marshalling her senses long enough to glare at him for the presumptuousness of it. he didn't seem to care, pale under his tan and red-grey eyes wild. 'You're not done!'
Tsunade shoved him away and drew herself up and onto her feet, her carefully braced right hand coming up. Naruto watched with his hand still on Sakura's shaking shoulder, eyes wide. What the hell was going on? What were they doing, out here in the middle of nowhere-
Tsunade loosened her grip slowly until her hand was open and Naruto could abruptly feel a small chakra point in her palm, glowing in the back of his mind. Gairano watched it intently, but after a moment of stillness, a crease appeared in Tsunade's forehead.
And that seemed to be a bad thing.
Tsunade closed and reopened her hand, a spike in the chakra telling Naruto that she'd put more energy into whatever technique she was using. But, whatever response she was looking for, she apparently didn't find it. Her face looked slightly pinched, from more than just her intense concentration.
There was a long silence, except for the wind blowing harshly through the leaves.
Gairano's face didn't flush or screw up like most people in the grips of extreme emotion, but Naruto watched his entire body seem to draw in and become somehow more concentrated, his face almost perfectly still but for those eyes. It was the first time he'd ever seen a Gairano looking directly at something, and...
And then that gaze turned on him, and Naruto instinctively shifted to block Sakura from view, raising his eyes to meet Gairano's.
The naked confusion in them made him blink, the Jounin shaking his head slightly like he just couldn't understand, as though Naruto were some impossible thing. 'You?' he asked, and the word was almost swallowed up in the muffled world the thunder had thrown Naruto into. But then.
Then the change was like ice down his spine, Gairano's eyes flicking from side to side, gears moving visibly in his head and unraveling in the center of Naruto's horrified vision. He seemed to be looking around him for something, for some sort of clue and he stared, for a moment, at the ground at Naruto's feet, which seemed utterly ordinary when Naruto double-checked to see what had made the stoic man so utterly pale. Until finally those grey eyes rested on him again with a sudden, frightening clarity, and Naruto didn't think 'd ever seen that kind of rage in a human being before.
'... You,' Gairano said again, that thousand-yard stare boring through Naruto's wide eyes and directly into his soul. He took a single, heavy step towards the two Genin before Tsunade cut him off. She appeared to have snapped out of whatever state she'd been in, her face set in her famous determination.
'This isn't over,' she said briskly, pushing the sleeves of her robe up to her elbows and setting her feet slightly wider apart. 'Not by a long shot.'
Naruto felt Sakura grip his shoulder and pull him slightly, both of them rising to a standing position. Naruto didn't dare take his eyes off Gairano's, but he muttered to her out of the corner of his mouth when he felt his hearing was recovered enough to hear an answer: 'what's going on?'
Sakura hesitated audibly before she answered, hand tightening on his shoulder.
'I think that... Raiku's dead,' she whispered.
Naruto blanched.
Tsunade drew both her hands together just as the Jounin Yamada exploded out of the treeline, one massive hand outstretched.
"No!" he roared, in time for a spike of chakra that made the ground shake.
Naruto had just enough time to grab Sakura and turn his back to the field before the storm cloud that had hovered over the cage exploded with a sound like the sky cracking open. A shockwave of electricity was released and clashed against the enormous shield Tsunade threw up in their defense, so powerful that it blew the nearby trees flat and others exploded from the overload, sending peripheral fires shooting up far from the original blast site. One part of the maelstrom, a bright arc on the edge, broke free and shot across the sky to earth, trailing blue-white energy and sending up another, smaller shockwave when it reached tree-level. Thunder deafened in its wake, the air shrieking and wailing in protest so loud it could be heard for miles and miles and miles-
Behind the shield, the last vestiges of Raiku's Plot vanished into nothing.
