I do not own Naruto.
"Where is the chainsaw, Theresa?"
Theresa, still in the guise of an old man with a single eye, scowls as her sister (or is it brother?) shakes her by the shoulder.
"I already told you Franky, he's blocking me-"
Franky puts her wrinkled hand over her sister's mouth, moving in closer. The two are inches apart, getting closer. The tension between them is palpable.
"Try harder."
Lien passively watches on as her cousins squabble like highschoolers in the bodies of sextagenarian asain men who are probably mortified by the way their physical forms are being treated. There is little dignity in the act of being sat on by another, threatened with a globule of spit dripping from a wrinkled, puckered pair of lips. It's almost hard to imagine that the Third Hokage could ever recover from such a thing, but he must, because Lien knows he goes on for years yet.
Theresa manages to push her sister's mouth away before the spit falls on her face, her fist coming out of left field to smack her sister in the jaw.
Franky, in the body of the Third Hokage, squawks like a strangled toucan. The hand covering her sister's mouth slips sideways, smearing drool over her cheek, presumably from where Theresa was licking her sister's hand.
"To think I was worried!" Theresa grunts out, struggling to buck her sister off of her. Ever stubborn, Franky refuses to budge, wrestling her sister back down to the ground by her shoulders, her own drool covered face glistening in the faded light of the room.
"I'm really touched by your concern, but I need you to find where that bastard put my chainsaw-"
"Forget about the chainsaw, you're an old man-"
Franky laughs at the irony of that statement, finally succeeding in shoving her sister to the ground, only to yelp as said sister pinches the soft flesh of her inner thigh with a gnarled, weathered hand.
"-Ow you bitch! You're in the body of an old man too-"
"-The fact that we're all men is the problem Franky-"
"-Spent a whole paycheck on it. You know we need it to-"
"-Lost my best cookie tray, don't hear me bitching so hard-"
At some point, Lien sort of tones them out for a little bit. At first it was mildly diverting to watch them scramble around, all baggy skin and old people muscle. Then it became outright funny, and Lien feels honored to have been able to watch both of her cousins kick, and in turn, be kicked in the nuts for the first time. There's a certain sense of accomplishment and understanding that passes the first time that happens when body jumping, both horrible and awe inspiring. One finally understands the sensation of an external period cramp concentrated into something that radiates upward until one wants to vomit their own testicles. A unique experience, to be sure.
Now though, it feels pedantic. Franky, abusing the power of the Hokage, had them brought in hours ago, and nothing has been done. Theresa's hive-queen host body is doing it's best to block her out, burrowing deep inside it's own psyche and trying to separate the two of them, and Lien is almost certain that Franky's is doing the same.
The problem is that her cousins are … well, they are trying to keep a stagnant sense of self instead of allowing themselves to integrate like Lien does. They want to wear the bodies, not become the people. In essence, it's two consciousness warring inside one vessel instead of the constant ebb and flow of one being.
'How are we different?' asks the boy whose body Lien is borrowing. 'There's you and me, not us.'
'I am listening for you,' Lien replies. 'And you are listening for me. I know what you know as it pertains to the situation at hand, and vice verse. We are us, together, in the now.'
The boy seems confused, not understanding. His confusion leaks into her, and she knows she can't explain it with words. She'll have to show him.
She does the spiritual equivalent of brushing her hand comfortingly along his, asking him for a moment of trust, and surprisingly, he allows her. She catches the lingering memory of a dream they once shared, a shoddy fort made of twigs, and a promise to go nowhere together-
Lien cuts them apart violently.
The body they wear twitches, and she can feel his shock at the sensation, but she does what she used to. She drowns it out with pure, unadulterated will power and emotional turmoil. Her consciousness rips apart from his, and it grows, shoving him back into a mental corner.
She fills the spaces, pouring herself into the fingers and toes of this body, trying to fill it as if it was her own. It doesn't fit right, will never fit right like this, but still she tries, ignoring the boy's shouts of protest, letting her own thoughts run wild and loud.
It's easy, so easy to remember how it is to possess somebody. To steal a body and take control. She knows, knows with intimate clarity, what she could do. It's the instinctive cutting word, the promise of the satisfaction that comes from absolute control. It's clear cut lines, a sense of absolute.
Lien breathes in, forces air into the lungs that itch because they don't quite fit, and she lets go.
The boy reclaims the mental territory she tore from him, eagerly establishing his place in his body once more. It doesn't seem like much, but he understands now what she meant to show him. It would be simple for her to dominate the mental plane and shove him away into some dark box inside his own mind, but the discord unsettles her.
'The Dao is about balance,' she says, placid and calm inside their shared space. 'There is no balance in a take without giving. The instinct to have more than one needs is natural, but excess without moderation leads to disharmony with the Dao.'
'The Dao?' he wonders. He catches the thoughts running through her mind and memories of a piece of writing made by some scholar centuries ago. Then there is an impression of something infinitely large that connects the cosmos, from the stars in the heavens to the grains of dust in his sandals.
'It's... Ineffable,' she answers, struggling even though she just admitted to not being able to communicate the concept. He feels her calmly search through terms until she settles on the right one with a tranquil sort of acceptance, knowing it's not quite right, but not wrong either. 'Everything.'
The nameless boy stares out at the old men wrestling on the floor, and he kicks his feet idly, enjoying the fact that he can. He doesn't think the others understand what Lien is thinking. He doesn't even know if he understands it, or if it can be understood.
The Third Hokage squeals as Danzo-sama sticks his wet finger in his ear, and for a moment, he can almost see them as his visitor does. Curly hair and wild eyes for one, and auburn locks and a kind smile for the other.
'You aren't invaders, are you?' he concludes after a few moments.
'I don't think so,' she answers. 'Not right now, at least.'
He hums, tilting his head to the side. Or maybe she tilts it. It's hard to tell the difference between them now that she's shown them how separated they could have been. There's still a sense of him and her, but the line is blurred and fuzzy.
He wonders if she lives like this all the time, with the world only defined in clouds of smoke and banks of fog. It seems terrifying to him, like she could just drift off at any point and blink out of existence.
There is a huff in his mind, soft and far away. He does not know if it is wistful or amused.
'One day, maybe, you will see the path,' she tells him gently. 'Perhaps, you may even follow it.'
Eventually the sisters in the bodies of old men get tired of harassing each other on the floor of what is equivalent to the dream world's oval office. It seems that they have decided that there is no dignity in giving each other wedgies or pinching each other any longer, and then, as a team, they turn on Lien.
Franky, of course, asks about her chainsaw's whereabouts first thing. After that, Theresa is asking more and more questions about how this place runs.
Lien has no answers for them, and neither does her host.
"You've been coming here for years," Theresa huffs exasperatedly. "You should know these things."
"Do you know the current location of the Hope Diamond?" Lien returns, aggravated by the suggestion. "Do you know where I put my purse today, or why people support things they know to be corrupt?"
"Okay, first of all, your purse is probably in your house or-" Franky begins.
"-And your chainsaw is likely in this village or another," Lien interrupts.
Franky gives her an exasperated look that speak volumes on how helpful she finds that statement. A look which Lien returns unrepentantly.
Theresa witnesses them both acting like children and sighs, rubbing her forehead with her leathery old man hand, and hoping that her face remains unwrinkled for years yet. She's so tired, and it's barely even eight o'clock. How long are they going to be here?
"Look, just … let's ignore the chainsaw and logistics for now. What do you usually do?" she asks, desperate for any sense of footing in this time of uncertainty.
Lien, still in that solemn boy's body, blinks. Her placid expression and collected demeanor seem so familiar in this foreign place, because no one but Lien has ever looked so vacantly aware, as if viewing things passively, even her own life.
"I exist," she states simply, as if that is the greatest advice she can offer.
Franky groans and slumps back into her chair. The only proper chair in the entire room, Theresa might add. The rest of them get the dubious honor of sitting on the floor at Franky's feet like some sort of vassal rulers at their kings court.
"No philosophy, please," Franky sighs.
"It's not philosophy," Lien rebukes. "It is what it is. Usually when I find myself in the body of another, I do as they would, allowing their consciousness to manifest their will. There have been a few times I am left in a body with a dormant mind or something along those lines, and at that point in time, I do what I feel necessary. I don't usually take control."
Theresa, in particular, seems bewildered by this notion.
"I...Lien, this guy...this body's spirit is evil," she stresses, rubbing her bandaged arm nervously. "I can't see it all -he won't let me- but what I can see would have him dragged into prison six times over."
"Same. Granpa over here is balls deep in the sketch. The fact that he seems totally fine with the fact the he straight up murders people is really messed up. Don't even get me started on how he runs this village," Franky echoes.
Lien is weary of this judgement. This is the Dream World, not theirs. They are not gods to come in and cast judgement on another's way of life, so long as that life does not inflict their will upon them. They don't even stay here for that long.
"Let it go. This is not your world. Those are not your bodies, and these are not your choices. Imposing morality on the dream world is a misguided effort at best, and delusional effort at worse. The more you try to, the more this world will keep you here," Lien warns softly.
There are memories half buried that surface at that notion. The friend that twisted her neck in the chicken coop, a man with hatred in his heart that bled out into his eyes, and a girl who can't remember where she begins and others stop.
But are they memories, or are they event that have yet to come? Lien doesn't know, she can't keep anything straight. Time is so conceptual, never straight in a line. Branches and branches, the endless cycle of the Dao-
"Lien, you just said you don't know jack about this world," Franky says accusingly.
"I don't. I have dreamed of this place my whole life, and seen centuries pass here in the span of a single week's worth of rest, but I know nothing solid of it. I don't know why I come, and only have theories about what brings us here. I am as I am, and here, that has to be enough," Lien responds.
For a while there is silence as they absorb that fact. Nobody really knows how to follow it, and outside, night is falling.
They while away the hours until their bodies are weary and sleep heavy, the cousins looking for clues to their possessions and warring with their hosts. Lien simply allows the Ne boy to pick at the dumplings they found inside a desk drawer at some point, and he seems to revel in the flavor of them. Apparently, he is far more used to rations and gruel.
And as it always happens, at some impossible to pinpoint moment, they wake up, each in their own body, alone inside their own mind, surrounded by the world they know.
But in the one they left, two old men wake up, and they panic.
The boy, however, seems perfectly calm.