I do not own Naruto.
According to basic physics, as they are currently understood, there are four fundamental forces that make up the universe.
Gravity, for one, plays a huge part in the cosmos. It is the natural phenomenon where energy (and therefore mass) is brought toward others thing made of energy (and mass).
Electromagnetism, something that was once thought to be two separate forces, is actually a word that describes a relationship between electrically charged particles. The third, known as Weak Nuclear Force, deals with the radioactive decay of subatomic particles, and nuclear fission.
The fourth, and final force, is known as Strong Nuclear Force, ensures the stability of all matter.
Now, Lien is no physicist. She's not particularly versed in the language of the universe -aka, math- and she has only a moderate level of education. She'll be the first to admit that she's not exactly a credible source on matters of ...well, anything but her own individual experiences, she supposes.
But she might hesitantly say that there is, perhaps, a fifth force.
And yes, better people than her have proposed this same thing. They have searched again and again for that mysterious fifth force in the universe. They have looked into things like telepathy, and the dubious subjects of psi-energies, but Lien thinks that maybe they went way too far, way too fast. It's not quite as esoteric as those things.
The fifth force, in her completely unfounded opinion, is consciousness.
And therein lies the trouble.
Because consciousness is so hard to define, to explain in a quantifiable way. It's hard to observe, let alone calculate, and fitting her bastard amalgamation of psychology and biology into a field as rigid as physics is almost abhorrent, deplorable to minds much grander than hers.
She understands why. Of course she does. Breaking down consciousness into a palatable, usable scientific term or equation is far above her own capabilities, and proposing it as the fifth force of the universe is nothing short of arrogant without any of those things to back it up.
But here she is, doing just that.
She likes Michio Kaku's definition of consciousness the most. That is, she defines consciousness as understanding one's position in space (physically), perceiving one's relationships to others (culture, society, and nature), and capable running hypothetical simulations (which may be restricted to higher thought, she doesn't know.)
With this, consciousness becomes less of an abstract, general term, and becomes a tiny bit more measurable. Only, the measurements for this system haven't been invented yet, and the definition isn't even hers. She's piggy backing off someone else's theory, and warping it around.
(Which may be theoretical science in a nutshell. But again, that's a bit pretentious.)
How then, one may ask, is consciousness the fifth force?
To which Lien would answer 'consciousness can be observed regularly acting, exerting itself on the world and reality around it.'
It can be sensed, constantly, like a universal law. Everything with a consciousness is constantly interacting with the other forces around it. From the first fish, with only the first level of consciousness, that interacted with its environment with regards to the things in the space around it, to the grand architect that uses their understanding of forces like friction and gravity to build great bridges, allowing them to act with greater efficiency with the others around them. Consciousness becomes inseparable from reality and the forces of physics because it is constantly adhering to them, and utilizing them, to shape reality.
It would be simple to say that consciousness can be measured by exactly that; the changes it enacts on the reality around it, but then reality must have a solid shape to begin with. It must be accurately defined for it to be used in a test.
But, according to her Theory of Gradient Reality, it's relative to perception and individual experience. It's half paradoxical in nature, because reality is ever changing and flowing, very real one moment and not so much the next.
So, consciousness become less quantifiable, less testable, and reality becomes fluid again.
"Lien," Theresa interrupts after two hours of listening to her ramble, still stuck inside the body of an old man. "None of this is explaining how we are here."
"No, look," Lien says, lifting her hand -or rather, the hand of the boy she is currently inhabiting- "Stick with me here. I'm trying to establish consciousness as as a universal force, because in my theory, when we dream, we travel universes, not in our physical forms -which are converted to energy- but as a conscious."
Theresa gives her a stare that is severely underwhelmed. She knows what Lien is trying to say. She's been listening to Lien say it twelve different ways fr hours now.
"If we travel as a conscious, then why did we have our bodies last time, and why did the chainsaw and baking tray travel with us?" she asks pointedly.
"Energy and matter are locked in an endless cycle of conversion, back and forth. When we travel, because we are traveling through space and time, we have to be converted to energy to withstand the force of it all, and then when we arrive, sometimes that energy converts back into matter, taking on physical forms that they are most familiar with. However, sometimes due to unseen variables, the energy doesn't convert right, and we assimilate whatever form is easiest for our consciousness to inhabit with minimal amount of conversion," Lien postulates vaguely.
"Hang on, are you saying that I'm commandeering an old man's body because it was easiest for my consciousness to inhabit without losing energy-slash-matter?" Theresa asks.
"Maybe," Lien agrees. "Maybe there's resonance going on as well, where a percentage of the atoms that make up his structure are exactly like the ones you have in the waking world, and that why your consciousness chose that form; because it was harmony on a level neither of us can comprehend without doctoral degrees in theoretical physics."
"Lien, at some point in time, I distinctly remember being a t-shirt, not an old man, and I'm pretty sure you were a bird, not a boy. So why the changes?" Theresa rebuttals.
"Okay, well, there's a spectrum then, relative to time and space, and how much energy it took for our consciousness to come here," she amends, wondering if there is an equation she can use to explain this all. She's sure it would be one of those calculus ones, with the greek alphabet mixed into it, and sometimes english letters as well for no reason at all.
"And the language? Because last time, I sure couldn't understand it, but now I do," Theresa says.
"You're in a natives grey matter, sharing neuro pathways. I think your mind might be mimicking them, which means, over time, as you re-trace the neural paths, you might come to learn the language," Lien theorizes, grabbing an explanation out of her ass.
Theresa's look says she knows exactly what Lien is doing.
The younger girl fidgets in her seat, and the host body tells her that it is the incorrect action to take. That the old man in front of her expects better, but Lien quiets him and assures him it will be all right.
'It will not be,' the boy replies. 'If I know you are here, he will know she is in there. This is an invasion, a takeover, foreigners from-'
'Shhh,' she replies mentally. 'It's just a dream.'
Something well up inside the boy's memory -a test tube, a strange forest that stretches on forever, a warm hand in his- but Lien is too distracted to focus on it. She's trying to figure out what Theresa wants from her, and she suspects it's some sort of answer. Only, Lien doesn't know. She has her theories and guesses, but she's not sure. Nothing is sure in this world.
"You know what, Lien?" Theresa asks, breaking the silence.
"What Theresa?"
"I don't like this."
Lien snorts, the serious atmosphere broken by the simple yet heartfelt statement.
"I'm serious. I really don't like this. My joints hurt, I have bits hanging in weird places, I'm pretty sure I have something inside my limbs that should not be there, there's another person inside my head who is very angry, and this world ate my best baking tray. My definetly female cousin is staring at me through an adolescent boy's body, so jaded by the oddness of her situation she's mastered a frightening zen, and my sister is nowhere to be seen. She's probably getting chased by people who manipulate gravity and throw knives. Or she could be a plate. That's how weird this is," Theresa says calmly, folding her hands in front of her.
Lien doesn't reply, she doesn't need too. Her brain hardly takes into account how strange this is anymore. Cultural status quos, typical scenarios- those things are arbitrary, as fickle as her own understanding of the universe. The only constant is change.
"How do we make it stop?" Theresa asks. "Have you ever found a way?"
"No," Lien answers, because there is no forcing it. She has tried many times in her longer stays to wake up. Pain does not do it. Changing shape doesn't help. Dieing leaves her in stranger places still. There is no surety here.
"We'll find a way then," her cousin says, and Lien thinks she may be trying to comfort herself.
"It's not so bad, Theresa. It'll be okay. It's just a dream after all."
Theresa doesn't answer her this time, staring at her in silence. Lien keeps saying that, and she wonders how many times she had to tell herself that to believe it. Wonders if she really believes it at all.
"We have to find Franky," Theresa informs her later as they walk the halls of the bunker together, old-man hive-queen and young-boy soldier. Nobody bothers them, not really, because Theresa is wearing the body of the hive queen, and nobody upsets the top breeder.
(Or, according to the mind Lien is sharing, the top recruiter. Danzo, as he is known here, doesn't produce the populace of drones so much as he maintains it.)
"She'll show up, if she came at all," Lien assure her. The halls around them are grand in thier infrastructure, winding and cavernous. There are stairways and paths that lead into small sub-tunnels and underground halls where the colony can train and learn in masse, each one working to produce a greater whole. There is electricity here, but it is sparse and intersped with burning sconces, a mismatch of old tech and new.
Theresa scowls, her lips turning down on her wrinkled face. For a second she truly looks to be the old man she is wearing, all stern lines and stressed skin wrapped in gauze, but she isn't Danzo anymore than Lien is- ('Thirty Seven, that was the number on my tank. Here they call me Shodaime's tool or Feline')- the boy who dreams of forests.
"Do you think she's wearing someone or-?"
Lien hmms noncommittally, a bit bothered by the phrasing of that. They aren't wearing someone else's skin so much as they are living their lives, just for a little bit. The other person is still inside, sometimes screaming, sometimes crying, sometimes terrified, but Lien experiences this all along with them. They are one, until they become two again. She knows what they do, and they know what she does...to some extent, at least.
"You're pushing too hard, let it happen naturally," Lien advises distantly. " Time is malleable, and there is no date to keep or expectation to meet. Enjoy the caves."
"Lien, we are in a secret underground fortress home to a military force. Like, SS, or secret police. They are doing heinous things to people of all ages, according to this old farts memories. I want to get my sister and wake up. Short of that, I want us all together. It's dangerous here," Theresa intones seriously.
"It's not so bad. Before this, there was an era of continent wide warfare. I once spent weeks as a farmer's daughter, living under the thumb of the shinobi. Some were nice, some not, and life was very uncertain. I made a friend and they strangled me to death in the henhouse," Lien comments offhandedly.
Theresa gapes at her. Lien frowns a bit herself, puzzled.
"Or was that the future? I don't know. Like I said, time here is malleable."
The two continue in silence, making their way upward to the surface at an idle pace, looking like two males sharing a quiet, solemn moment. In reality, Theresa is trying to comprehend death and not death while Lien clets her mind float free of itself, her skull echoing with a quiet static that reminds her of silence. No thought, no particular emotions, just observing her surroundings.
They make it further up than that, faced with a door that seems familiar to the both of them. It leads upward into a structure of some kind, the wooden boards old and creaky beneath their feet, the walls a plain plaster. Outside, noise pours in, and harsh sunlight streams through the windows.
"The Hokage mountain will tell us when we are," Lien says serenely, blinking back tears at the change in shading.
Theresa doesn't answer immediately, looking out the window contemplatively. She makes quiet the study in the lighting, an old stooped male full of secrets, his lone eye troubled, his shoulders weary from the weight of his work.
"Alright," she sighs after a moment, her voice worn and tired.
Lien leads them outward still, going past the security in the safe house, blending in with ease. Theresa, it seems, has adopted the demeanor of a harmless old man, and together they walk until the hard packed earth greets their sandals, the warm Konoha night seeping into their skin. It's a marked difference from the chill of the underground complex of the hive mind, and people here are more organic. The talk and whisper, going about their lives in the same way many do. Though style may be different, and accents and language change, day to day life is eerily similar across the worlds.
"Four faces, but the fourth is not so new. The stone is weathered," Lien states, her head turned upward, peering at the mountain looming in the distance. It's not the earliest she has been, nor the latest.
"That means…?"
"It means we can walk unhindered for a little while, but we should return to the hive to sleep tonight."
"Compound," Theresa corrects absentmindedly, staring up at the mountain.
"I have been an ant before, Theresa. I know a hive when I am in one, no matter what word you use to describe it," Lien fires back without heat. In time, her cousins will learn.
From the Hokage tower, in the main office, the woman wearing yet another old man's body cackles as she catches sight of two figures walking down the street. Danzo, the man this man gave the chainsaw. At last.
The Anbu detail sweats nervously yet again. The Hokage has been strange all day, like the time he came into the office drunk, or the time somebody switched the grass in his pipes. Whatever it is, they hope it ends soon.