Chapter 7
Karasu flew up as high as she could towards the clouds. The higher she went, the more she could feel something pushing her down. She kept trying to fight it, but the more she focused on fighting, the more she got pushed down until she eventually fell towards the earth. She awoke from her trance frustrated.
"I don't understand. Why am I being pushed down like that?" she exclaimed.
"That is the barrier that we all have which prevents us from transcending our dreams. The key is not to fight it." the old woman said.
"If I don't fight it, then I won't overcome it." Karasu replied very perplexed.
"You aren't supposed to fight it. You will need whatever it is that gives you the ability to fly in your dreams. Surely you have felt it. It's that surge of power that flows through your body and as you expel it, you fly. You've done it so much, it's become second nature and you don't think about what it is or where it came from. If you couple that with your conscious self in your dream, you will be able to break the barrier and ascend beyond your dreams. Just remember my warning, this technique is only meant for pursuit of knowledge. Do not go trying to conquer your nightmares." The old woman replied.
"I don't know what it is that makes me fly in my dreams. I always just thought I was using my jutsu to fly like I would in the real world. Granted, it does feel slightly different flying in my dream than it does in real life." Karasu said.
"We will break from your training until you discover what that is. Until you figure it out, there is nothing else I can teach you." the old woman said exiting to the back room of her house.
Karasu watched as her mentor left her. The tone in her voice almost aggravated and disappointed. She left without saying a word to her mentor and walked aimlessly around the village. Something she hadn't noticed until now, but the villagers, they seemed to wear the same expression on their face as her master. She shrugged it off and finally made it home. Karasu laid in her bed trying to sleep thinking it would clear her head, but it didn't work. She threw off her covers and climbed up to the top of a tree to gaze out into the distance.
It had almost been six months since she began her training. After all this time, she couldn't even understand how she was doing it all. What was it that allowed her to do the things she did in her dreams? Was it a person, a place, or a thing? Just the slightest thought of it was enough to make her fly? Karasu closed her eyes and began to meditate. Out of habit, she found herself in her dreamworld. It was dark and lonely. It was constantly raining and she saw moments of her life flash before her when lighting struck. She fell to her knees and began to cry.
"What's wrong?" a child's voice called out to her.
Karasu looked up to see a little girl, about the age of seven looking at her concerned. She had blue hair, and gray eyes. It looked like a smaller version of her. "Who... Who are you?" she asked.
The little girl's eyes lit up and she smiled intensely "My name's Karasu and I'm seven years old. What's you name, miss?"
Karasu looked shocked and replied. "My name is Karasu, and I'm about to turn seventeen soon."
"We have the same name, that's super cool! Mommy always told me if I find someone with the same name as me, it'd bring me good luck if I became friends with them!" Young Karasu replied.
Karasu wiped her tears and let out a light giggle at the little girl's answer.
"Karasu, why were you crying?" Young Karasu asked.
"I don't know how to explain it..." Karasu began.
"You miss your mommy and daddy, don't you?" Young Karasu asked.
There was a slight pause, "Yes. I do. I miss them very much."
"Then why don't you go see them?" Young Karasu asked.
"It's because I lost my mother some time ago, and my father went missing and I don't know how to get to him." Karasu said with her tears beginning to form again.
Young Karasu grabbed Karasu's hand, pulling it up to her. "Then come with me to meet my mommy and daddy. They are really sweet people and I'm sure they'll make you happy." The smiled on her face full of confidence and excitement.
Karasu stood up and began to follow Young Karasu as she held her hand. Immediately as she began doing so, the world around her changed. It was no longer dark, it was no longer raining. Instead, she was in front of a familiar doorway. When Young Karasu opened it, it was bright and warm. Karasu looked around the room to see she was home. Young Karasu broke free and ran toward the open kitchen and dining room.
"Mommy, daddy, I'm home! I brought a new friend!" she said cheerfully.
"Oh, and what is your new friend's name?" an older man said. He had brown curly hair and brown eyes. Standing next to him was his wife who had blue hair and gray eye, just like her daughter.
Young Karasu tugged at her father's hand, "Her name is also Karasu!"
"Really now? That means you'll both have good luck." her father replied smiling at her and picking her up to hold her. Her looked over at Karasu and smiled.
Karasu felt her breath leave her. Before her stood her parents, Don and Konan. Both were smiling at her. Young Karasu cheerfully grinned at Karasu and said. "Don't ever forget what gives you strength Karasu. After all, now that we know each other, we'll both have good luck!"
Slowly the world around her began to dissolve and Karasu now looked at the open, blue sky. Her heart burst with the same energy she had always felt in her dreams and she shot straight up, however this time, the energy felt stronger and more potent than ever before. She felt some resistance but she clung to her feeling and next thing she knew, the sky shattered like broken glass.
Karasu opened her eyes and found herself among the ruins of an old village. She felt a familiar haze that she had felt when she was in Getsugakure. As if the air was trying to seduce her mind into some illusion.
"So it looks like you learned her old woman's ways?" a faintly familiar voice called out. "I guess it's as they say, like father, like daughter."
Karasu turned around to see a strange masked man standing before her. It was the same man who congratulated her father on solving his riddle which allowed him to return home. Her face filled with fear and anger, "You! What are you doing in here?!"
The man held up his hands, "Calm down Karasu, I mean you know harm. I'm merely here out of curiosity."
"Stay away from me. I want nothing to do with you! Thanks to you, my life was ruined!" she exclaimed.
"Actually, the blame isn't mine. It's mainly your father's but also yours. You see, I gave him a free ticket out of this world, but because of his life here with you and your mom, he declined. Naturally, free tickets can only be offered once so the next offer came at a price." the man replied.
"Just what kind of sick, twisted person are you?" Karasu asked.
"The name's Obito Uchiha, and not the twisted person you think I am. I merely want to see the world happy. You and this world were just a byproduct of an experiment I had in store for your father. I didn't expect it to come this far or produce the effects that it has." Obito replied.
"Explain yourself before I gut you." Karasu said standing up from the ground and holding out her kunai.
"Imagine a world where you have everything you want. There's no pain, no suffering, only happiness. All you have to do is perform a single jutsu and all you could ever have is at your disposal. I wanted that for your father's world. I knew nothing about its true nature so I made a list of people to subject this jutsu to, one of them, your father. The world you know now was made in part by your father. His deepest desires shaped the world to where he'd be happiest." Obito said.
"But it's all just a lie! It's all just a dream induced by your genjutsu!" Karasu shouted back.
"Is it really, little girl?! Give your father some credit, if all of this was fake, then why did your father stay? If all this was truly fake, then he would have taken my first offer to leave. He knew better!" Obito retorted.
"He stayed because of guilt! He used this place as a means to an end to make himself feel better. He left a trail of blood behind him to return what he knew was the truth, reality." Karasu said.
"Then answer me this, Karasu. Was Don satisfied when he left? Was his heart freed from the burden he carried for so many years?" Obito asked.
"Yes..." Karasu replied.
"You know as well as I do that Don would never settle for anything less than the real thing. He'd never entertain a fraudulent world to lay to rest the ghost of his past. The fact that he was satisfied when he left proves everything that happened during his twenty years here was the real thing." Obito said.
Karasu smirked, "You're wrong. I don't understand why you are trying to commend my father for all that happened here, but you're wrong in doing so. My father knew this place was a lie, but he was too weak to accept it. You didn't see it because you weren't there with him at the very last moment before he snapped and decided to leave this world. My father was a coward for twenty years. You can make the argument, that he used this lie to clear his conscious and that was a good thing, but at the end of the day, a lie is a lie."
"So tell me, if you and everything in this world is a lie, what will happen when you successfully reunite with your father again? Wouldn't you, in all actuality, disappear? You don't exist in his world. You were never born. Your mother is dead. Why pursue this knowing you're just an illusion?" Obito asked.
Karasu said nothing, unable to come up with an answer. Obito had a point with every word he said, but she also felt that her arguments were just as valid.
"Tell me why you are really here besides to debate with me philosophically over whether this world is real or not despite it being the product of a genjutsu?" Karasu asked after a few moments of silence.
"I felt a disturbance within this world so I began to investigate and to my surprise, it was you trying to break out to be untied with your father again. I have no intention to interfere, you are on your own, but I would like to see this through. I've never seen if it is possible for someone to break out of a dream world who was created in it. If you succeed, it will certainly me valuable information for me to collect." Obito said.
"You made a comment earlier about me learning her ways, what did you mean by that?" Karasu asked.
"Karasu, look around you. What you see is the ruined remains of Yumegakure." Obito began, "A short time before you were born, this village was cast into pure madness. The old woman who taught you what you now know was the root cause of it all. She was a proud woman who played with the wrong side of her powers and in turn, unleashed a powerful genjutsu which destroyed the minds of everyone in the village including herself. It was a bloodbath as people were either killing each other or killing themselves from the sheer breakdown of humanity. All that was left was a curse, that whomever wondered into the village would become trapped in a genjutsu. Very few have broken out of it like you have, but those who did reported they were sent to a version of the village that was alive and normal. Those who couldn't escape lost their lives."
Karasu looked around and saw the ancient skeletons scattered around the old village. She couldn't even remember falling for the genjutsu, and it was a scary thought that she could have been trapped there forever. When she turned her attention back to Obito, he had vanished. Where he once stood was a scroll. She cautiously walked over to it, picked it up, and opened it. She discovered it was a map to an unlabeled location. Instead of an X, it bore a fan, which was the crest of the Uchiha clan. The mark was located on the mountain which overlooked Konohagakure. The same mountain with the hokage carved into it.