I do not own Naruto. TW for casual mentions of suicide.
Lien pulls up to Theresa's and Franky's house in a spray of rocks, not so much easing her car to a halt, but braking so fast her car skids across the dirt road and into the grass. The vehicle shudders as it stills, the engine silencing suddenly as a cloud of kicked up dust drifts behind it.
From her vantage point on the porch, Theresa watches on in mild alarm.
Lien flings open her door, the metal groaning as it opens, and she steps out entirely composed, her expression blank and calm. There is something off about her cousin, her petite body radiating something Theresa can't quite name. Whatever it is though, Lien's consumed with it, and she serenely glides over to where Theresa is, her dark eyes glimmering, her feet light as they cross the old wooden planks of the wisteria roofed veranda.
"Lien-," Theresa starts, worried.
Lien cuts her off, her small hand reaching out to snatch Theresa's wrist. Her slender fingers look odd there, nestled against the darker skin, like a bird's talons around a mouse.
"Nothing is real," Lien asserts tranquilly. "Everything is a dream."
Theresa gapes. What the hell does she mean, nothing is real?
Lien doesn't let Theresa's obvious shock stop her, tugging her larger cousin forward, her grip like steel as she turns to the house. She is so caught in her purpose that she forgets that the door doesn't open by willpower alone, and she slams into it headfirst, hard enough to cause Theresa even more anxiety. The red mark on her head doesn't seem to faze her, though, and she fumbles for the doorknob, mumbling about the arbitrary mechanics of a made up world.
'This is it,' Theresa chokes inside her mind. 'Lien's finally lost it.'
To be fair, it shouldn't be surprising. Lien has always been odd. She's reclusive, near hermit like, living by herself in the middle of nowhere. She only goes out to work, or visit them, and she can barely hold a coherent conversation some days. The distant, near air-headed attitude was acceptable as a child, but growing up, it had only gotten worse.
Of course, that had all been explained with recent revelations. Lien's been jumping in and out of worlds forever and ever, and it's not… it's not a dream. Not like she thought they would be.
That world is too real. It's vivid and bright, occupying every sense. When Theresa dreamt before, she could hardly remember her dreams, and often times, they were just nonsensical impressions of ideas. A tomato flood, or an embarrassing situation where she was pants-less at school.
This other place lingers, though. She can remember it is great detail, from the smell of the glade where she lost her baking tray, to the feel of her skin sagging around her flesh. She wants to write it off, wants to forget, but it won't let her.
Now, looking at Lien, she has the terrible feeling that she may be looking at a possible future version of herself.
"Franky," Lien calls evenly as she finally gets the door open, stepping inside. She's in such a hurry, she doesn't even take her shoes off, treading over the floors in her sandals.
Lien never does that.
"Lien?" Frank asks, her muffled voice floating from the kitchen. If Theresa had to guess, her sister is talking with her mouth full.
Lien blinks distractedly, swiveling her head in the direction of the voice, dragging Theresa behind her. Theresa has to snap out her foot to kick the door closed, and she fumbles with her shoes fruitlessly without her hands as Lien tugs her onward. Now they are both wearing outside shoes on the clean floor, like some sort of godless heathens.
"Nothing is real Franky," Lien says, before she's even in the room. "The state of reality is in constant flux."
The two of them stumble through the mudroom door into the kitchen, where Franky has paused mid-bite, her sandwich hanging loosely in her hands. She has her elbows propped up on the counter, her curly hair tied back with a bandanna to keep it out of her face while she works outside.
And Theresa was completely right. One of her sister's cheeks is stuffed with partially chewed turkey club, and yet she deigns to open her mouth.
"Wha-?"
Lien, in a move more fit for a ballroom dance floor than a kitchen, spins Theresa over to her sister's side in order to have her audience in one place, showing astounding strength for one with such a tiny body.
"The other world has as much reasoning as our world, but they are both equally as false as when broken down. It's not so random as we once believed. There was branching evolution, and a larger distribution or energy-slash-chakra-slash-radiation-slash-I'm-not-sure. All I'm really sure is that I exist, nominally…. at times. In the same way the hollow space in a vase exists, or the room in a cup that hasn't been filled. You could be fake, but for the sake of my own fragile psyche, I am choosing to believe people are real most of the time," Lien delivers eloquently, her expression frighteningly still.
Franky resumes chewing, more slowly than before. She squints her eyes at Lien, hazel orbs narrowed in judgement.
"Decartez?" Theresa guesses, unsteady and trying to find at least one familiar idea.
"Lao Tzu," Franky corrects uncertain, finally swallowing her food. She gives Lien a hard look, trying to pinpoint the odd atmosphere around her. She can't name it, but something has changed. Insanity, maybe?
"Every real thing can be measured-"
"Wrong," Lien states, cutting her cousin off. The rude behavior is as jarring to Franky as it was to Theresa, and she inhales sharply. Her callused hands squeeze a little tighter on her sandwich.
"The Principle of Uncertainty means that everything can be measured, up until a certain point. After that, they cannot be measured. Also, somethings defy measurement, like random radioactive decay," Lien recites coolly, with the same level tone she's been using throughout. Her eyes stray to the side, near the counter, as if she can see something there. Or perhaps she's just distracted by her own thoughts.
The sisters stare at her, wary.
"So, if that world is a dream, and this world is a dream, there must be a hitherto unseen real world. Or, all the worlds are real, and they exist simultaneously within each other, and I, as the breaking variable, am fake. But because I cannot be fake while doubting my own fakeness, then I must be real, unless I exist in a state of paradox," she starts up again.
"Or you're an outlier," Theresa hedges, uncertain she's been following correctly. Or if there is a correct direction to follow, considering this is most likely a breakdown of monumental proportions.
"-Or I'm an outlier," Lien provides. "In which case, I would be counted as insane. However, as you two can attest, this other dream world exists as well, and in the Theory of Gradient Reality, it becomes more real because it. However, considering populations, three is not very many, and it's still not real at all. Then again, from what I know of the other dream world, they would consider our world fake, and so our world doesn't exist either. They exist to only the three of us, so all of us are insane."
Franky furrows her brow, looking confused. Those were words, yes, but in that order they didn't quite make a lot of sense.
"What?" Theresa asks, equally appalled.
Lien stares at them for a long, long moment without speaking. Her gaze is unsettling, to say the least.
"Everything is a dream," she says slowly.
"No," Theresa replies back, drawing it out equally slow. "We're awake."
Lien continues speaking, despite Theresa's negation of her previous statement. She will not argue that topic anymore than she will argue that planes fly. To her, it is obvious, and explaining this much is already pushing her.
"This world says the other world does not exist, and that world says the same about this. They both make little sense when broken down, and only a few people remain as outliers to attest to their existence, independent of belief. However, I hypothesize that the more people that come to believe in the worlds, plural, the more they will make sense, and the more they will become real. Like what happens with morality. What is believed to be right, becomes it."
"There are...so many thing wrong with that…. Lien, I- " Franky tries. She seems unsure, and contemplates the situation for a long while before finishing her statement. "That's not how it works."
"It doesn't work. Because it's not real. So I have to make it real."
"And how are you going to create reality?" Theresa queries, eyeing her. She looks so...at peace, as if the whole world can shift and flow, but she has removed herself from it all.
"I have two people from one world that believe in this one, and now I need some from the other world to believe in ours to balance it out and make everything more real. Only, I've never bought anything between worlds," Lien outlines, glancing back at her cousins. "But you have."
"That's not how it works," Franky protests again, still not offering a better solution.
"The only other answer I see is that dying is truly waking up, only I've already done it there, so I'd have to try here, but I thought you might get upset if I did that and it worked," Lien continues coolly, seemingly unaffected by the thought of inducing her own death.
"Lien," Theresa whispers, suddenly horror stricken. "You're talking about killing yourself."
Lien gesture idly with her hand, as if to say 'see, I told you it would be upsetting to you'. Yet she herself remains unmoved, her expression lax, and her posture loose.
Theresa darts her eyes over to her sister, who meets her gaze with a concerned one of her own. Lien is unstable, and a danger to herself. They can't just let her leave now. In fact, they aren't really sure what they can do.
"How about we just tuck that idea away," Franky comments shakily, turning back to watch like she's a dangerous predator on the verge of attacking. Or perhaps a family member who just casually brought up suicide as a means to test a theory. "And do what you first said. You can spend the night, maybe a couple of them"
Lien smiles at this, a half grin that reminds Theresa of the Mona Lisa, or the ever gladdened Buddha. It's such a peaceful expression, and yet Lien's words are anything but.
Lien bows her head in thanks, and for the first time, she seems to notice her shoes are still on.
"Oh," she utters, blinking at her sandals. "I'm so sorry… let me...let me go fix that."
And then she shuffles out of the kitchen, leaving the sisters alone and unsure what to do.
Lien goes to bed that night fairly certain she's gone mad. That she has always, in fact, been mad.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she's aware that this plan of hers is insane, and that there are logical fallacies speckled throughout her entire thought process. A large part of it was circular reasoning, at best, and pure nonsense at worst.
However, Lien remains unaffected by this, because everything is a dream anyway, so she's going to do as she pleases so long as it does no harm to others. Though she can only ascertain that she, herself is real (at times), and others might be made up, it's no excuse to be rude.
It's freeing, in a way, to realize that everything that is, everything that she has done and lived by, is completely made up. The rules and constants are only consistent up to a certain point, and beyond that, there is nothing holding her. She's passed the event horizon of her life, escaped all ties save for that of family. She is groundless, flying free, more awake than she's ever been. Nothing is real, nothing matters. It is only what she makes it to be.
But to create something, she needs to make thread, thread that her cousins will help weave, and then cut.
Maybe a tiny piece of her thinks this will make the world real. Maybe. But mostly, she just wants to try it.
(True, she does want to try dieing in this world as well, but she's stalling that plan for the aforementioned reasons. People will get upset if she just goes and dies, and even if they might not exist, it would be rude to upset them.)
So, here she is, tumbling through the fabric of reality, en route to wherever and whenever. She's made the journey a thousand times, but with Ino's parts inside of her, she experiences it in a whole new way. She's… aware of the minds tied to hers as she exits her body, can trace the bonds binding them together like threads. They feel like gossamer on her consciousness, effervescent and light, just a fluttering thought at the edge of her mind.
Two she knows. They feel like wood-fires, and warm ovens. Theresa and Franky are strung to each other, and each one of them is sewn to her.
Two she can only guess. The lines of these bonds travel outward, into the other world. She lets them guide her, curiously following them through the universe, getting impressions of bush clovers and tree sap as she darts around nebulas. The clover is probably Ino, but the sap-
She vibrates, trailing the red string until she feels herself coalescing into a physical form, her cousins right behind her.
The world blinks into being, the moon high and ripe in the sky, a silver jewel hung among the stars. Her bare feet touch down in grass as high as her waist, the glade stretching onward into a forest full of trees that dwarf even the mightiest sequoia. It's temperate out, a slight breeze running through the summer air.
Lien takes a single moment to recognize that she's human, though younger than her other body. Judging by her hands and too big clothes, she's a teenager again, which is … a thing. Symbolic, perhaps, of the changes her mind is going through. If she had to pick a form to describe both insanety and will made manifest, she would pick a teenager.
She peeks behind her to share this thought with her cousins, but they do not appear to have followed this trend. The sight that greets her is not two other teens, or any humans at all.
Lien begins to laugh.
"Dogs!" she teases.
The creatures behind her huff and growl respectively, obviously annoyed with the change of form. They are great, big beasts, coming up to Lien's chest, with rippling fur and muscle. Their ears swivel around as their yellow eyes comb the forests, and Lien thinks that Theresa's auburn hair suits her even better when it covers her as fur.
Franky, lifting a paw to scratch her muzzle, whines at her.
"Oh cousin, it's alright. You are lovely even as a dog," Lien compliments, brushing some of the coarse hair on her back. It's thick and coarse, and flows between her fingers like water.
Lien does not know what symbol this is supposed to take, or why they have manifested in this form. Perhaps it too, is symbolic, or perhaps it is entirely random. Whatever it is, she thinks it is delightful.
"Those are not dogs," a voice rings out from the treeline, causing Franky to stiffen under her palm. Lien remains calm though, because she came here following the red thread. She knew she would find people. That was the entire point.
Theresa, not knowing this, or perhaps running on instinct, swivels around to face the sound, snarling, her tail up and fur bristling.
"Those are wolves," the voice states again, almost lazily. There's an undercurrent there though, a dangerous one. Threatening even.
Lien looks up, and she peers toward the speaker, noting there is not one, but two people standing near the trunks of the great trees. Both sport masks of white, and one looks terribly familiar.
Standing beside a taller ninja with silver hair is the ninja that was in the cell with her and Ino, only younger. His brown hair is slightly longer, swaying in the wind, and his frame isn't quite as large.
Lien smiles, even as her cousins turn and snap. She knows him now, the one with the red string. He's the boy with the forest inside his head. The one that was without a name, a ghost who lived inside the great hive.
"I found you," she remarks happily, grin in place. The silver haired ninja stiffens at her her words, following her gaze to the boy beside him.
She lifts her hand from her cousin, outstretching it towards the ninja.
"Are you ready to go nowhere together?"
AN: So, a couple of things. This chapter is kinda the start of a new arc. The first chapters were an introduction of characters, and a series of events that will slowly, kinda, begin to be tied together from here out. We have a bunch of facts, a huge clashing of philosophy and science, a big cast already, and now it's time for them all to begin interacting and figuring the mystery out. To make any sense of this though, because Lien is a nonlinear narrative, removed from the timeline, we will begin to see things from other peoples POV.
Also, to clarify, when Lien 'Wakes' (capital intended) she's ascertaining certain facts, and acknowledging certain positions. It's more spiritual than physically manifest. HOWEVER, because she 'woke', and because she blended with Ino, we will be seeing her gaining some attributes. Mostly, she becomes more aware of how to navigate between worlds. Notice how in this chapter, she chose where she wanted to go, instead of just being caught up in it.