29

Intersecting space, crossing a gulf that was both insurmountable, and insignificant.

It was the first time I had travelled a Corridor of Darkness outside of a World, in the Sea of the Skies.

It was... different. There was nothing to shield me from the Realm of Darkness as I dipped closer to it, no barriers to even mildly block the primordial Darkness as I traversed hallways of it.

At the same time, the Darkness seemed different, somehow... I'd say passive, but it really wasn't. It just seemed calm.

Calm in the way that the ocean was calm.

And wasn't that fucking ominous?

Nevertheless, it didn't stop me from travelling to the closest World.

I appeared outside the world, Gummi Block in hand.

Here goes nothing.

I brought the Gummi Block up to the Dimensional Barrier.

It-

Adding, Multiplying. A smaller piece of a greater whole temporarily becoming one with another greater whole, the sum of its parts greater than both.

A word passed from one World to another, carrying meaning, a communication beyond understanding.

A bond is formed, then broken. However briefly, both are changed forever more because of it.

Subtracting, Dividing. The smaller piece was rejected, regretfully, becoming separate again, allowed entrance.

- passed through the Barrier with ease, like a rod passing through water.

It sunk through, my arm following it, passing through the Barrier.

I've oft repeated it, but I regret that I don't have the ability to smile.

The first thing that struck me when I appeared was the rain.

Dark and stormy rain clouds, spilling out rain enmasse, tens of millions of tiny little spikes of water.

It reminded me, all too much, of when I had appeared in Amegakure.

I was on a building, a tall one if the fact that I could see most of a city was any indication.

A city that actually appeared pretty normal, instead of the somewhat steampunk and pipes look that Amegakure had sported.

I could make out neon signs in the distance, advertisements and signs throughout the city, from this vantage point. Too far away for me to read, though.

Not that I was interested in the signs, or the city, or even the rain.

Far more immediately concerning was the Darkness.

There was just... so much of it. Choking. Drowning.

Charged.

It was like comparing lakes to oceans, calm waters to stormy seas.

There was so much more of it here, than in the Elemental Nations. So much more active, so much more churning, overwhelming.

So much more impossibly powerful and dangerous.

One side of my vision saw a normal world, the other saw a black abyss so deep, I wondered how this world hadn't been destroyed utterly.

I could see the currents, see the ebbs and the flows. There were spots completely unlike any that I had ever seen, seeming like maelstroms to my eyes. Swirling around, concentrating into a single spot, dragging everything around it in.

Worse still was the emotion. The anger, the hate, the sadness.

The Despair.

All four were things that I had seen and felt during my time in Konoha, but never had I felt them in such terrible quantities like this.

This Darkness would not harm me, but whatever caused it, whatever caused this despair, was not something I wanted to tangle with.

I took a step forward.

In the exact same moment, the ground exploded.

A wave of force crashed into my body, a loud booming sound reaching my non-existent ears. I could feel as dozens of shards of metal and concrete flung out and ripped through me, tearing me apart without so much as a by your leave.

Then, I just stopped feeling at all, my body reduced into naught but a cloud of Darkness and acrid smoke.

What the actual fuck!?

I floated for a moment, stunned by the entirely unexpected explosion.

Then, I started to pull myself together again, coalescing once more into my normal form.

Smoke flowed back into place, melting into a mass of Darkness that was Me, slowly reforming my body from head down. I hadn't got remotely close to finishing when I heard a tinking sound below me.

It was only because I was already looking at the ground that I saw a grenade suddenly materialise and bounce off what was left of the concrete below me.

Oh, son of a bit-

There was another resounding boom, and I was once again reduced to Darkness and smoke.

I didn't have eyes to glare with, but god damn if I didn't try to anyway.

I refrained from the instinct to pull myself together, instead just floating there as I tried to figure out what to do.

Also because I didn't want to get exploded again, but mostly to figure out what to do.

I 'looked' around, searching for Hearts and emotions. I was on top of a building, at night, with heavy rain and a storm going on; whatever was around was probably my attacker.

To my left, a grand load of nothing, nothing and nothing.

And to my right, on the top of a slightly taller building next to this one, a Heart.

A flicker.

I saw another grenade materialize, though this one continued moving to the middle of the cloud that was me.

I felt it detonate, spewing fragmentation in every direction. It wasn't a concern; I didn't have a physical body to hit, and I was all but intangible to shockwaves as a cloud.

I glared anyway.

No more grenades or sudden explosions came, so I took that as a good sign.

I started condensing again, knitting back together, slowly.

I had just -just- finished remaking my eyes when another grenade bounced off my forehead.

Tests results now in, 'You are a horrible person'.

Surprisingly, this one didn't immediately explode.

I looked up, catching a glimpse of a small, feminine figure, right before yet another grenade bounced off my head.

And unlike the last, this one didn't fail to explode.

We weren't even testing for that.

For the 3rd time in as many minutes, I was reduced to a cloud of Darkness.

Well, fuck you too then.

I 'pushed' away from the utterly ruined top of the building, and far away from the explosive happy bi- person who keeps trying to kill me, moving through the air at a fairly fast pace.

To a different rooftop, where I won't have annoying would-be murderers trying to kill me.

For the 3rd time that evening, I started to rebuild my body.

This time around, I actually got all the way down to rebuilding my legs before my little would-be-murderer appeared on the roof next to mine.

I glared at her, just daring to have the gall to try this one more time.

She, in response, holds out her hand and -and dear god why is there a missile launcher?!

She lifts it to her shoulder, hefting the -AT4 Missile Launcher, I belatedly recognize- with surprising ease from someone so small.

I dive toward the ground and become a shadow, because like fuck I'm staying in the open.

I'm not quite certain of the exact moment that she fired, but what I do know is that the missile was, far too quickly for my tastes, suddenly right fucking in front of me.

There was a bright flash of light and a resounding boom as the missile hit and exploded.