I don't own Naruto. Edited 7/9/16
In a house near the edge of the woods, three women open their eyes in no particular order.
The first thing Franky does is jolt upward, sending her sheets flying across the bed to land in a rumpled heap. She begins patting her body down reverently, cocking her head around to look at herself in the mirror across the room. The curly headed woman grips her heavy breasts in her hands, and lets out a crow of delight when she feels their weight, and sees her own hazel eyes staring back at her from the mirror. She slide her palms downwards beneath her sweatpants, and she laughs with relief at what she finds. She is her again, and her body is distinctly female.
Her sister is slower, more groggy and unfocused, but in the room across from hers, Theresa rolls over and stares at her hand, which is cradled softly on her pillow. She blinks a few times in a daze, seemingly enraptured by the sight of the smooth, wrinkle free flesh, and pale skin. While her sister whoops in joy while staring down her own shirt, murmuring kind words to her mammaries, Theresa finds solace in her comfortable skin, unburdened by time and unplagued by aches.
The both of them look at their rooms, and their bodies, like they have been given the greatest of gifts.
Lien sits up, and goes to make breakfast.
Life goes on.
It's all normal to Lien, all completely within the acceptable parameters for what she can understand. There is no use familiarizing herself with this body anymore, for she knows it better than any other in the Waking World. It requires approximately 2,300 calories a day to keep up with her metabolism, runs best on about four pints of water, and enjoys the taste of balsamic vinegar salads and steamed ginger fish.
While her cousins reorient themselves to this reality and begin to try and find answers, Lien showers and gets ready for work, emptying her mind. The clay pot is needed only for it's hollow cavity, not the ceramic vessel. The home is not the walls or windows, but the space within them.
Lien has no substantive existence in any reality, and her worth is measured in the same way. It is in potential use of what she could be at any time.
Over the course of her life, she has come to accept that. What matters is not the form one inhabits, or the age they are. It matters not what they are, save for what they are in that moment, and the moments that have passed and those yet to come.
In time, her cousins will see that as well. She does not know how to feel about that anymore.
That night, Lien goes to sleep in her own bed after a long shift, in her own home, without the aid of drugged tea. She expects to follow the same strange pattern that has been occurring with her cousins, and the male with a forest inside his mind.
She closes her eyes, and her brain waves even out before spiking with the onset of REM sleep. In between the thick forces holding the cosmos together, her consciousness travels, rebounding off of the the burst of a supernova, and sling-shotting around the gravities of entire star systems. She transcends all time and space, caught in the buffering forces that tear entire galaxies apart.
And then, unlike the other times, she slams into another.
Lien is overwhelmed by several things at once. First is the fact that there is another traveler in the first place. She's traveled these paths for all her life, and never has she encountered another consciousness before. In fact, the only thing that could be considered anything close to that was the forces of the universe that pushed and pulled her around, but they aren't senient. Or, they aren't sentient on a level that Lien can comprehend.
The second thing is that the consciousness that has slammed into her seems just as alarmed as she is, and is...combative about the whole interaction. It's stretching out tendrils of itself to encase Lien, to trap her. It's weaponized itself on a metaphysical plane of existence, and is intent on neutralizing Lien.
Perhaps most alarming of all though, is that this consciousness is as fluid as Lien is, and every time it tries to wrap a tendril around her and attack, it ends up burying bits of itself inside Lien's being. Everywhere they touch, they end up combining, like vinegar and water in a bucket. She can feel bursts from the stranger, the sensation of alarm, of determination, and eventually fear. It's so startling, so uncomfortable, that Lien instinctively attempts to flee from it's grasp, but only ends up tangling more.
The consciousness seems to register that they are stuck inside of each other, and its fear pulses through them. Lien feels it churn, seeking a way back to where it came. Lien is convinced that there is none, but to her surprise, there is a ribbon of some sort. A ribbon which the foreign soul uses to guide itself back to its body, dragging Lien with it.
This time the transfer into the physical is jarring instead of smooth. This is not the most comfortable, or the most suitable physical form for her in that moment. It was the one she was shoved into, tied with the other consciousness as she was. It fits poorly, and the excess energy remains, billowing and trying to escape their form.
Feeling returns like fire along their nerves, and sound is both comforting and frightening. Lien does not know what is happening. She is unsure, caught up in the sensation of this forced form. It seems too small to house a large consciousness like the one she is tangled with, and far to tiny to hold the both of them. But the alien mind meshing with her feels comforted by it, like a child with a security object, and Lien realizes with sudden awe that the soul mixing with her is young. A child with an expansive mind and greater soul.
"-Ino, baby girl," somebody calls, shaking them. Their hands are big and warm on their small body, and the young soul feels so safe in them. So Secure. "Ino, come back."
They struggle to breath as one, their worlds blending together. The young soul is trying to find grounding, but keeps getting distracted by the points where they join together. It looks into Lien's mind, concentrates on the glimpses it gets jumbled memories from her, until it stumbles upon the Dao. Lien tries to grasp the young one, to turn them away from the heart of all things, but it is fearless as it stares into Lien's very being, absorbing everything that can be reached.
'There is so much,' the new conscious whispers, in fear and awe. It feels like spring, decidedly female inside and out. A little girl that mingles with Lien, infantile curiosity leading her to bleed out into the other woman, who suddenly finds it terribly hard to recall that she is just dreaming.
"-I knew it was too early to show you the family technique. Come on sweetheart, you're scaring me. Your chakra-"
The shaking turns to grasping, and them instead of just hands, a whole body is wrapped around them. The soft grass beneath them is suddenly too real, far to solid and warm. The girl continues to blend and bleed, and Lien is left shocked as she is swamped with information. Instead of fighting or hiding like her usual hosts, the young one devours, clinging and claiming her. That weaponized conscious seems determined to end the problem of two souls inside one body by combining both.
"Daddy," The young girl replies, breathless as she controls their lips.
"Ino, thank the heavens," returns the voice, and suddenly Lien knows that this is Inoichi Yamanaka, who is papa. But Papa is also a short, squat man in a wheelchair, who was a fisherman. Now he is two in one, and she cannot tell which real and which is dream any longer.
"Daddy," the young one says again. They open their eyes, and Lien raises their hand to look at, totally ignoring the man hovering above them. It is small and slight, as pale as fresh cream, and wreathed in billowing energy. "It's infinite. Forever and ever."
The man holding them stiffens, and they look away from their small hand and tiny fingers to stare up at him in wonder.
"Ino?" he asks quietly, and there is desperation hiding under the steel in his voice.
"-and Lien," Ino says before Lien even has time to respond. She's too busy trying to stem the flow between them, to build boundaries. Ino is acting on instinct, and it is brave, but the end of them both combining is the death of who they are now.
Inoichi's grip grows a little bit tighter on his daughter.
"I saw stars, daddy," Ino continues. "I saw the whole world, and then the cusp of another. She was there, and now she's here-"
"How do you know that name?" he demands, and Ino laughs, as free and as bright as the bird they were the other night. She can feel the phantom weight of wings on their back, and the energy pulses and sways.
"She's had so many bodies, and they have all been hers and not hers," She says. They struggle get out of his grip, because the urge inside them is growing, and Ino knows she can touch the sky. She can taste the wind and freedom, something she's never yearned for before now. Something she would have never known is she hadn't begun to blend with Lien.
His expression turns dark, and he holds her back down. It's easy to do because they are so small, and Ino seems unfazed by his actions, unbothered. The fear that was in her is draining away as they bleed into one another. Maybe it's because she can tell Lien means no harm, or maybe it's because she knows that Lien is just as unsure as she is. Maybe it's because she can sense Lien trying to fix things, and trusts her to take care of it all, despite the absurdity of such and idea.
"Ino-"
"-and Lien. Lien and Ino. Two and one, and one as two, except it's more. It's everyone, and everything," Ino says. In their mind she keeps flying, higher and higher. Lien warns her to stop, to look away, but the child will not heed her. She trusts Lien because she can see inside her soul, but she is still a child yearning to explore what the new them will be. She doesn't understand the implications of what becoming a them will mean, she only knows that is if two minds become one, the body will fit better.
She peaks, caught somewhere between the joy of flight and the triumph of victory, and then there is the other side of the Dao. The immensity that is crushing, strange, cruel, and unforgiving. A boundary that Lien has tried to build crumbles, and there is no going back. Ino sees what becoming them means, and understands the gravity of it all. Memories and ideas flow into Ino, and suddenly she does not want to fly. She doesn't want to give up being Ino, to sacrifice her identity, the very core of herself. She likes being a precocious eight year old under her fathers care, and she loves her friends and life. She doesn't want to absorb the Lien that has seen war, that has known terror and death. She doesn't want to be the thing that is both of them, and neither.
Her body gasps, ceasing her struggles to fly, and goes limp in her father's arms. Ino is drained and tired, but she busies herself trying to stop what she began, building walls and boundaries with more proficiency that Lien could ever hope to have. It's like she was trained to do such things, to manipulate the constucts of her mind, and shape them to better suit her needs.
"I'm sorry," Lien says, using borrowed lips. She is sorry that Ino saw such frightening things, and that they have already blended so much. She is sorry that she could not stop the mingling on her own, and that Ino now has to work to fix it as well.
The father focuses on the strange inflection of the voice, and Lien sees the shared body reflected in his eyes, all pale blond hair, and sky blue irises. Outwardly, the body is unchanged, but Lien know they can never go back to the way things were now.
"You aren't my daughter," Inoichi states with cold realization, and Lien nods.
"Ino's busy," she tells him calmly, because Ino is busy separating them as best they can, drawing lines in their psyche, attempting to untangle them. For now, she will assume control so Ino can focus on her task.
"You get out of her," he orders, as if it is a simple thing to do. Lien spares him an appalled glance, because it's not that simple. Lien has never been able to just leave someone before. How would one even go about that?
He barks out something else, but it's hard to understand him. Lien gets that there are words being said, but Ino is moving on the the language center of their brain, trying to sort out English, mandarin, and whatever Elemental common tongue is. Lien is only able to catch snippets as the girl works.
"-Never come back-," he whispers to them. "You should have stayed away. You're- regret ever- my baby girl-"
"I'm sorry," Lien says again, no inflection in her tone, hoping it's in the right tongue.
The man raises up, cradling them in his harms. There is a strange buzzing that itches underneath their skin, like electricity and molten earth, and it pulses when he takes off running. He's a tree walker. A paternal tree walker. The concept is interesting, and Lien wants to theorize about it, but Ino is crying out in confusion, tugging on Lien's focus. The child is demanding assistance, stumbling across a point where she is having trouble building a boundary.
Lien is dragged out of the physical, into their muddled mind. The outer world fades into blurs as she becomes distracted by the other soul joined.
Ino is stuck in the loop, caught in a never ending flow of a whole life's worth of information. Her thoughts, defining moments, her beliefs and systems all flood into the child who only has a handful of years in her, and the blurry lines of reality entangle them both. The concept of the Dream World and the Real World confuse the child, and she's losing coherence as she struggles to separate them.
'I...I….I,' the girls stutters out, but she still trying to make sense of it all, still so brave in the face of it all.
A flutter, almost indistinguishable in this flow of ideas and memories, catches Lien's attention. It's soft, like the petals of a flower, unfurling carefully. It's a sense of solidity, of certainty in all of this. It is the base facts that Lien uses to assume functionality, her most basic truths.
Lien pushes it toward the child.
The girl lets out a protest, but Lien knows it must be done.
The protests grow fainter as the girl realizes that the basic facts are necessary to continue living as she wants, and that she needs them to continue her work building boundaries back up. She knows that without them, she will succumb to cyclical confusion and disorientation.
'I can't...but you,' she asks. 'Help me, I can't- I need-'
'I know,' Lien says comfortingly, and the girl is filled with both grief and relief. She recedes back in their head to finish her task, and Lien takes control of the body again, drifting up out of the mental plain, back into the physical. It seems easier for some reason, like it was never as absurd as she thought it to be in the first place.
As she surfaces she notices they have been taken elsewhere, far from the grassy field. Before she even opens her eyes, she feels shackles binding the body to a chair, holding it upright. The smooth, cold metal is jarring, a sharp contrast to the warm, rough hands that held them before. The environment lacks any sort of breeze, and she cannot feel the kiss of the sun on her skin.
She opens her eyes to darkness, a dimly lit cell with damp air that carries hints of mildew. It takes her a moment to realize that the only illumination available is coming from her own skin, the energy that refuses to be transformed into matter exuding a soft light.
"You said this day would come."
The woman in question looks over, and there is suddenly a masked shadow in the corner of the cell. She does not see their face, but she knows them somehow. The tufts of bark colored hair, and the set of his shoulders; they are familiar.
"Franky? Theresa?" she asks curiously.
The being shakes his head. For some reason she thinks of a forest stretching forever, and a unnaturally even grass.
"You told me once that I would stand here," the masculine voice repeats slowly. "You said that everything would start changing."
"Everything is always changing," she replies.
"I'm not… I'm not ready," they confess, and Lien sympathizes with the quiet anxiety she finds in his voice. The living shadow folds in on itself, and for a moment it looks so very small and human that Lien cannot help herself. She wants to comfort it, to let it know it's okay.
"It's alright," she tells it softly.
The shadow takes a deep, shaking breath that seems to rattle through their torso, and shiver through their frame. It takes it a moment to stand tall and composed again, shoulder back and porcelain mask shining. It pauses only for the briefest of seconds before slinking back into the corners of her cell like a phantom.
"I'm sorry," it whispers. "It has to happen."
"It's okay," she comforts again, not knowing what it is speaking of. "It's just a dream."