I wrote this chapter years ago. This is a rewrite to better fit the continuity in Dead Tales. Enjoy!
The first sign that all was not well was the absolutely hellish scream coming from somewhere around him.
He struggled to his feet from the broken ground that marked his impact, hoping to assist whoever was making such pain-filled shrieks, his hands bracing the rest of his body.
Or at least he tried to.
All at once, awareness slammed into him. The scream went on and on, torn from a throat that felt scraped raw—he knew because it was his own throat. His body felt like a thing half dead. The stab wounds he'd accumulated and promptly ignored were all screaming for attention. Only the molten steel coursing through his chakra pathways made him feel alive.
Too alive, even.
His right arm stopped at the elbow. He stared at the stump stupidly. The molten steel coursing through his body seemed to originate from the end of the stump. He could hear laboured wheezing. This was the worst he'd ever been. But then again, he'd been fighting for what seemed like days without rest.
He forced his mouth shut, stifling his screams even as he tried to form the flame in his mind like Jiraiya taught him all those years ago. Some semblance of control returned as he pushed the chakra in his brain faster, trying to power through what was definitely a concussion at the very least.
Hinata!
The thought came like a stab in the heart, but he pushed it away, feeding it into the flame he held in his mind.
Slowly, he became painfully aware of where he was. Crouched on a strange, dark, hard surface painted with white lines running down the middle. Buildings so sheer they might be cliffs loomed around him, and in the distance, he could see a skyline almost like New Ame—except wrong
Too clean.
Too much glitter.
His eyes darted about in paranoia, infinitely more anxious as the information from his ever increasing awareness trickled in.
Must. Not. Pass. Out, he thought to himself sluggishly.
With the amount of blood he'd surely lost by now, any shinobi below jōnin would be unconscious at best. He became aware of people gawking at him—tens of people dressed in colorful and vibrant fashions and holding up small rectangular devices before their faces even as they stood behind the rails a bit above him.
For a moment, the fact that he couldn't sense any chakra from them nearly made him consider that he could be in a genjutsu.
"Oh my god!"
His eyes snapped towards the voice, his body jerking in spite of his wants. His meager concentration shattered, sending the chakra he was barely controlling lashing in all directions in his brain. Nausea overtook him, and for a brief moment, he nearly grabbed a hold of the threads again. Then they slipped out of his hands, and the world lurched, darkness rushing in to swallow him.
Meaningless…
The dark haired girl shifted around the strike aimed at her torso as time seemed to slow for her, barely restraining herself from breaking the ankle of the person that swung at her with a casual stomp.
Father said this is to be just a spar…
She repeated it to herself like a mantra, opting to strike just below the ear of her assailant as she ghosted past him. The man crumpled like a bag of bricks, foiling the legs of the second assailant who had been on her heels. She restrained herself from smashing her bokken across his throat as he fell backwards.
Only a spar…
The third person, a woman, by her lithe frame, threw caution to the wind and rushed her with a roar. She was sorely tempted to kill the bitch for such a stupid move. Did the fool think this was a manga?
Can't she tell my reach is longer than hers by at least five inches? A half turn allowed her to stomp the head of the assailant at her feet, putting him out of his miserable struggles even before his head bounced off the wooden floors.
The crack echoed louder than it should have. She froze for half a heartbeat, pulse spiking—not in fear of the enemy, but in loathing of herself.
She saw her father's lips tighten at the move, and she grimaced internally. She'd let her frustration slip. Deflecting the descending bokken of her last opponent, she slid past and into the woman's guard, bringing her off hand to touch the woman's throat.
"Stop," her father said, his soft voice doing nothing to hide the steel that made him the greatest with a blade in Japan.
She stilled instantly. She could feel the pulse of the other woman hammering away in exertion.
"You may leave, Saeko. Well done,"
She bowed, knowing that her father was not congratulating her for her victory in the spar, but for successfully holding herself back.
She was a monster. She knew this for a fact. If she was the daughter of anyone else, she'd have been locked away after that incident, then secretly drafted into the sections of the JSDF that didn't officially exist. Instead, her father took special care to focus on 'tempering her', as he put it. She was barred from holding a blade until she proved herself to him.
She bowed to him, the woman before her, and the two downed opponents before she walked out of the room.
Her real self was unsightly, and she would not fail to learn how to mask it at all times.
When next Naruto opened his eyes, he was in his mindscape.
He took a moment to just lie down in the grass that had replaced the sewer that was his mind. Now that he had a chance to stop and breathe, his exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him.
He couldn't help but remember what led him to the point—the fight with the traitor.
Sasuke, he thought with venom.
He could do that now, but when he first encountered the madman in their last battle, he slowed down, remembering their past together.
I was such a fool…
He should have remembered. This was the man who nearly killed Hinata when he first defected. But no—he was high on his own hype, thinking he could play with the Uchiha.
His hubris finally bit him in the throat. If only that was all…
That first encounter went wrong very fast. The traitor had raised something. Something mad, even for a man as unfamiliar with sanity as Sasuke.
The thing called itself a goddess. Kurama had mentioned something about how it was not all in their reality, but it seemed that there was enough of it to hold him as Sasuke sealed bijū after bijū into him, nearly driving him mad. He remembered those red eyes, alight with madness as his fingers formed seals, and overshadowed by the huge eyes of the thing he summoned.
He still remembered how it salivated as it watched him.
Of course, the Uchiha could not account for what he did not know—namely that Kurama could adjust the seal on the fly, creating space for his siblings as they were force fed into Naruto one at a time. His coils stretched and broke numerous times, but with the excess chakra, neither the Uchiha nor his summon noticed that his coils were healing just a tad too quickly.
Then she arrived.
Hinata…
She was a blaze of chakra and power, twisted together and forged by rage.
It was not enough.
The Uchiha met her with madness in his eyes. She had no chance against him—he knew it, she knew it, the mad man knew it.
But she was not trying to win. He knew that now.
The Uchiha buried his sword in her gut, twisting it and leaving her gasping in agony. He was close enough to see, so Naruto had the unfortunate experience of seeing those eyes whirl frantically, chakra pooling in them as reality twisted.
The void yawned behind him, becoming more real every moment as the Uchiha's eyes whirled ever faster. The rest of the thing that held him was there—he could feel it even in his pain blasted mind.
The traitor's sword pierced his chest from behind, Hinata putting all her weight into it. The man just snarled, whirling on her as a rasengan formed in his hand.
No…
He thrust it at Hinata. She barely twisted away—it blew a hole in her side instead of through her chest.
No!
Her lips moved. He could hear her words in his mind, even if she didn't say them.
Embrace Death.
No!
Her hands brushed the traitor's head, and his eyes exploded even as she drove her fist through him, right beside his sword in his chest.
The void behind him shuddered.
He still remembered her smile. He could see it even now.
Her chakra swelled as the caged seal began its work. Between one heartbeat and the next, she exploded, and he was thrown backwards into the flickering void.
He still had no idea how he lost his arm.
He still had no idea how he was alive.
No, scratch that. He could take a guess on the second one.
His only saving grace was that he'd long unlocked the original seal to give Kurama more room. If the seal was still intact… If they had not made modifications to it…
If I had not been a complete and utter fool.
He sat up to consider the other occupants of his mindscape. Despite being bijū, they hadn't escaped unscathed. Or escaped at all. Besides Kurama, they were all dried out husks, crumbling even as he beheld them. He couldn't really be surprised. The rest had been captured, presumably sealed, forcefully extracted, only to be forcefully sealed again, this time into a dying Uzumaki with a seal that parasitized foreign chakra.
Only Kurama could have survived. Not only did he have more chakra to burn—more than his eight siblings combined—but his chakra was treated as relatively native by his host's body.
Yet even the mighty fox didn't escape unscathed.
The fox was dangerously lean. Fur that used to be luxurious looked old and partially decaying with patches of red chakra oozing from gaping wounds. His breath was a loud wheeze more suitable as a death rattle.
Naruto sighed to himself. His mindscape and its tenant were as good as they were going to get—for now. He needed to get back to consciousness.
Blinding pain welcomed his venture into consciousness. He ignored it, focusing on his surroundings with his other senses beside sight. He could hear scurrying - possibly people. He was on a metal surface, naked, with metal cuffs around his ankles and left wrist, and a metal band across his chest. From the light shining through his lids, the room he was in was brightly lit. Something slightly obscured the light, possibly the head of someone observing him. He guessed that he was in a room, possibly a treatment/experimentation room of some sort from the smells. There were possibly three to six people with him there, as well as other strange beeps and whirling sounds he could not identify.
He tentatively cycled his chakra. His coils hurt like hell, but he was relatively fine.
Next, he reached out for nature chakra. It was different—not in kind, but in flavour, like the difference between nature chakra in Konoha and nature chakra in the slugs' forest, but not quite. Those two places had different flavours, but the same sort of common thread running through them and other spiritually and conceptually different places.
But this? This didn't even have that. It was completely different.
That was what confirmed to him that he wasn't in the Elemental Nations any longer. Strange contraptions? Not conclusive. Pathetically small amounts of chakra? Not conclusive. But the energy of this place? Its chakra…
It was incredibly dense, as though all the energy was concentrated in nature as what he was sensing, with relatively nothing left inside people.
More unusually, it was extremely friendly—playful even.
The moment he sensed it, it rushed at him like an excited dog, frolicking around him and trying to get into his system. He allowed a little bit in and studied it as it raced through his coils excitedly.
Can I even call this chakra in the technical sense?
The closest thing he'd actually seen to this was youki—the subdimensional energy that bijū could draw on instead of their own chakra.
Maybe it would be similar enough to…
He took in some more, shunting some into Kurama's space in his core. The bijū was more adept at dealing with strange energy than anyone else, even among his siblings. He maintained the connection for a slow count of three hundred, then cut it off and entered his mindscape again.
The extremely cute, extremely naked woman poking at Kurama with curiosity nearly gave him a heart attack, before putting him on guard instantly.
"Who are you?" he asked, suspicion evident in his voice.
The woman whirled around and jumped in shock, her breasts jiggling and threatening to distract him. He forced the distraction under control with iron determination, and before she landed, he had covered her in a kimono.
He would not have naked women prancing around in his mind like his lecher of a sensei!
He met her eyes, and sensation flooded him. The feel of water running over rock and crashing down a great height. The taste of things as they decayed and were compacted between h̵͚̻͕̥̦̝̔̒̈̍̉̈́̑̀̕į̵̲̭͎̟͑͒s̷̰̥̤̘̜̖͙̙̠͈̹̯̜̗̈́͂̏̓̓̅͑͑͌̂̀̎͒͘͝ḩ̷̊́̾́̔͒̒͛ẻ̸̫̳̝̙̥̑̓̈r̴̠̞͚̀̓͐̎̌ plates. The weight of the ocean as it was swirled around h̵͚̻͕̥̦̝̔̒̈̍̉̈́̑̀̕į̵̲̭͎̟͑͒s̷̰̥̤̘̜̖͙̙̠͈̹̯̜̗̈́͂̏̓̓̅͑͑͌̂̀̎͒͘͝ḩ̷̊́̾́̔͒̒͛ẻ̸̫̳̝̙̥̑̓̈r̴̠̞͚̀̓͐̎̌, held steady by h̵͚̻͕̥̦̝̔̒̈̍̉̈́̑̀̕į̵̲̭͎̟͑͒s̷̰̥̤̘̜̖͙̙̠͈̹̯̜̗̈́͂̏̓̓̅͑͑͌̂̀̎͒͘͝ḩ̷̊́̾́̔͒̒͛ẻ̸̫̳̝̙̥̑̓̈r̴̠̞͚̀̓͐̎̌ field. The gentle rumble that rippled across h̵͚̻͕̥̦̝̔̒̈̍̉̈́̑̀̕į̵̲̭͎̟͑͒s̷̰̥̤̘̜̖͙̙̠͈̹̯̜̗̈́͂̏̓̓̅͑͑͌̂̀̎͒͘͝ḩ̷̊́̾́̔͒̒͛ẻ̸̫̳̝̙̥̑̓̈r̴̠̞͚̀̓͐̎̌ plates when h̵͚̻͕̥̦̝̔̒̈̍̉̈́̑̀̕į̵̲̭͎̟͑͒s̷̰̥̤̘̜̖͙̙̠͈̹̯̜̗̈́͂̏̓̓̅͑͑͌̂̀̎͒͘͝ḩ̷̊́̾́̔͒̒͛ẻ̸̫̳̝̙̥̑̓̈r̴̠̞͚̀̓͐̎̌ ground them together. Hot magma churning in h̵͚̻͕̥̦̝̔̒̈̍̉̈́̑̀̕į̵̲̭͎̟͑͒s̷̰̥̤̘̜̖͙̙̠͈̹̯̜̗̈́͂̏̓̓̅͑͑͌̂̀̎͒͘͝ḩ̷̊́̾́̔͒̒͛ẻ̸̫̳̝̙̥̑̓̈r̴̠̞͚̀̓͐̎̌ belly as h̵͚̻͕̥̦̝̔̒̈̍̉̈́̑̀̕į̵̲̭͎̟͑͒s̷̰̥̤̘̜̖͙̙̠͈̹̯̜̗̈́͂̏̓̓̅͑͑͌̂̀̎͒͘͝ḩ̷̊́̾́̔͒̒͛ẻ̸̫̳̝̙̥̑̓̈r̴̠̞͚̀̓͐̎̌ belched out new land. The companionship with old, hulking men as they touched h̵͚̻͕̥̦̝̔̒̈̍̉̈́̑̀̕į̵̲̭͎̟͑͒s̷̰̥̤̘̜̖͙̙̠͈̹̯̜̗̈́͂̏̓̓̅͑͑͌̂̀̎͒͘͝ḩ̷̊́̾́̔͒̒͛ẻ̸̫̳̝̙̥̑̓̈r̴̠̞͚̀̓͐̎̌ consciousness.
He dissociated with a gasp, struggling to keep his head despite the nearly overwhelming impressions. The woman stood shyly, gazing at him as he composed himself.
A crazy idea came to his mind.
What's the worst that could happen?
He raised his left hand, fist clenched, and held it out towards her. She looked at it, cocking her head to the side like a bird watching something interesting. He held it steady, looking at her, daring to meet her eyes again. The weight behind those eyes were massive, unfathomable things. Slowly she raised her hand as well, mimicking him. He took a step forward, and she did the same. He took another, and she did as well. In six steps, their fists met, and he blacked out in his own mindscape.
It was inside him.
When the guards opened his cell and cuffed him, he'd been - surprised. He supposed he had been locked away and forgotten. That was the 'right' thing to do to a killer like him. Ryuk had abandoned him, disappearing with his book as he left. The Shinigami had warned him from the very beginning of its fickle nature. It was his fault for mistaking amusement for kinship. He'd thought that they were finally going to put him out of his boredom.
He was wrong.
Whatever they injected into him was trying to twist him into something. Something so hideous that the dregs of what morality he had left rebelled with all their strength. If not for his particular awareness about himself, he was sure the change would have crept up on him and taken him suddenly. He hadn't moved from this cell ever since he was brought here, needing all his energy to keep himself. As the other inmates in neighbouring cells gradually changed, he was supplied with more incentive to resist. The first to change—a hulking mountain of a man who'd been on death row for multiple homicides—simply sat down one evening, and didn't move until morning. By morning, he was something else.
A zombie. They're turning us into fucking zombies!
As the hours dragged on, he curled tighter on himself, afraid that once he started moving, he'd be trapped in his head as something else drove his body on impulses that were alien to him. His need for sleep disappeared. His thirst disappeared. But his stomach felt like a yawning pit had been opened in it.
He lost track of hours. Days, maybe. His cell stank of sweat and death and hunger.
It didn't matter anymore.
"Fuck!"
He turned his head at the curse, barely. A caretaker was trying to wrest his hand from one of the turned, screaming in pain as the thing held on to him with its teeth. Reaching for his baton, he clubbed the thing in the head, smashing the back of its head in. It dropped like a sack of rocks.
The man muttered to himself as he bound his hand, struggling with the wound as he left the room. He didn't notice all the other former people pressed against their cell doors, heads following him like hounds following the scent of meat.
He didn't notice the turned head that could not return.
"Take note of his injuries," said the consultant. "It is rare to see injuries of this nature while the patient is still alive, so it is indeed a boon that he was brought here in time for this conference."
The patient was a young man, from what she could see. She looked closer as the consultant droned on, momentarily tuning him out. Roguish red hair that looked soft now that he'd been cleaned. A sunken face with six harsh scars like whiskers - an indication that they'd probably been intentionally applied on the young man. His face showed signs of extensive battery, a patchwork of bruises in various shades of black with ugly purple splotches.
And of course, the missing arm.
"The most fascinating thing is indeed his accelerated healing,"
The words of the consultant caught her attention briefly, before it drifted back to the man. He looked fit—probably military. Not lean enough to really have been malnourished, so not a POW. She catalogued what was beneath his sheet—invisible now, but documented on his chart.
Multiple stab wounds to his remaining upper arm, and three to the chest and torso. Three broken ribs, and four others cracked. Cracked left ulna, left and right tibias, and skull. Trauma to both kidneys, and spleen—among others.
Of course the really fascinating thing was that she could see his bruises fading.
"Every trauma specialist in the hospital is already terribly excited, and we hope to study how his body does what it does."
As she walked towards her car, she sighted Toshiro waiting by her parking spot. With a sigh, she turned around, heading for the hospital cafeteria. The man didn't know how to take a hint.
She sat where she could keep her car in view, a cup of coffee before her.
I miss Rika, she thought morosely. She'd have fun dealing with that creep.
This was her last workshop before she resumed her new job—a simple position as a nurse in a sleepy high school. The pay was adequate for her lifestyle—even though as a registered nurse, and a medical doctor-in-view, she was imminently overqualified for the position.
Her mind went back to the cute patient for a moment before she brushed it aside.
No thinking of work stuff outside work, Shizuka.
The sounds of the cafeteria created the feeling of background noise for her as she lost herself in random thought, occasionally checking to see if the creep had given up and left.
Besides Rika, she had no friends. Her parents were dead, and her relationship with her extended family was… bad—to say the least.
Women hated her.
'Drop-dead beautiful' and 'medical doctor' was a combination that was too intimidating for most men who weren't creeps. Creeps like the stalker pervert hanging around her car.
Work, school, tag along with Rika—those were the three things that described her life. Hopefully with the new job, she'd have more time to focus on her interests—when she found them.
He opened his eyes in his mindscape again, and found himself staring into those weighty eyes. Instinct took over as he blinked away, suddenly appearing three feet away from her, chains materializing to bind her before he caught himself. She looked at the chains curiously, like a child who had only seen something in photos before suddenly coming face to face with the real thing.
The memories came rushing in in an instant.
F̵̧̧̛̻͙͗̎̄͋̌͌́͗͒̓̔̾̓̅i̴̩̮̘̙̬̼̟͇͂̓̉̐̄̓̔́͂̈̀̐̕̕̕r̵̢̡̨͍̩̙͕̣̫̗̼̼͎͊e̸̺̱͓͎͇̣̰̤̜̻̎͘ͅŖ̵̛̖̥̩͇̰̔̊̽̽̂̽́o̴̻̓̾̎̈́̂́̽̇̋̐̊̇͘̕͠c̷̛̛̙̖̬͉̟̫͖͌̈́̐̈́́̓̂͗̊͑͗͜k̵̝̺̥̱̲̙̅F̸͇͆̎͋̓l̶̲̩͖͓̦̩͇͕̩̠̤̮̪̱̻̄ô̸̗̣͗̈͛͗͗͛͋̋̽̅w̶̭̄į̸̧̡̧̳͔̖̯͎͇̞̣̻̟͗́̔̒̐̈́̃̇̈́̾̑̐̍͘n̸̡̯͔͍̤͛̐͜g̷̱͇̺̖̋̿̊̈̾͌̿̔͛̋̐̇̄͘͝F̵̫̗͔̫̥͇̳̖̥̱̅͒̏̂ͅo̸̢̯̮̬̤̜̲̯̥͑̋̐́̿̚͝ļ̷̢̢̭͕͖̤̺̦͙̻̰͌́̇͌́͆̄͗̽̍͂̚ͅd̵̡̡̙̱͎̘̮̞̟̞͍̘͙̬̆̈́͊i̵̡̧̧̫̹̲̲̰̺̳͚̟̖͎̓̋̏̀̈́̏̀̚͜ņ̷͎̭̮̝̭͇̪̺̼̥̑̐͋̾ǵ̸̠̫͌̐̽̂̊̏̾̄̇͑̃̊͝W̴̹̬̳͓͎̙̐͋̾a̵̺͙͙̰̱̼̲̘͉̝̤͙͚̅̓̅͝ẗ̷̡̡̯͇̞̯́̈́̿̾̄̈͘e̵̡̝̫̬̣̭̘͔̩͋̌͌̌̐̐̍̃̒̓r̶̜̬̙͈̠̭͉̠̉͜͜S̴̥̘̪̻͌t̵̡̩̹̣͓̳͎͓͊̾͗̉͊͛̃ͅͅe̴͓̒̅á̴̱̣̪̋͌ṁ̶̗̪͆͐̑̈̀̓̔͠P̶̢̢̫̝͈̝̟͔̠̝̺̯̘̑͊̆͌̀́́̅͘͜͝r̴̢̨̛̯̰̖̘͈̰͇͉̪̀̄̓̿̚͘̕e̵̛͕͓̻͓̒͋͂̈́͜ş̸͉̺̱͈̞̗͓͒̐̀̇̄͗̈́͂̾͒̕͘͠s̵̰̖͔̼͇̪̘̞̼̽͒̓̋̉̆͑͆͋̚ͅu̵̧̡̬͍̤̩̼̻͝ṛ̴̟̩͗ę̶̳̺̳̰̗̞̲̻̮͉̦̗̦̀͛ͅĻ̸̢̗͙̟̣͕̣͌̈̀̍̀̅i̴͙̤̋̀̏͐͊̾̊͝f̶̡̛̙͖̤̩͚̲͉̮̥̺͉͕̱͋͗͊͝e̸̜̺̦͌̎͝H̴̨̨͎̹͕̲̹̩̤͚̝̣̹͐͗͌͑̔ữ̵̢͍̮̜̣̜̗̜̮̑̃̈́̆͛͑̈́̐̎͂̔̚͠m̶̡̮̣͙̬̂̍͌́͆̒̄̚ą̴̨̠̫̩̰͔̼̪̟͎̳̼͚̜͐͐̐̊̂́̂̆̒̈́͝n̸̡̨̛̻̩̗͌͐̈̏͑͗͑̃—the feelings felt almost like assault.
His hunch was correct—she was the avatar of this world.
"Hello," she said tentatively.
She waved at him, his mind flooding with feelings of warmth and so much joy. The tinge of loneliness underlying it all gave him some clue as to why she was so eager. He noticed she was clothed this time, and in the same manner she used to favour before… He halted those thoughts immediately.
"What do I call you," he asked.
She shrugged, almost nonchalantly, but through the connection to her, felt the almost desperate longing with which she considered his response.
Figures. Even anthropomorphised female avatars of nature act coy, he thought ruefully.
He watched her closely and she fidgeted under his gaze. Her mannerisms were like her's, but her body structure and the way she held herself was like Tsunade—his mother in all but name, and his first and longest real crush. Her hair was shaped like Jiraiya's unruly mane, her eyes Orochimaru's shade of gold, and the colour was an exact match for Kurama's fur in prime condition.
Looking at her was like remembering the best of them. It was pain he didn't know he needed.
"Kioku," he said, a sad smile on his lips.
She took a hesitant step towards him, radiating concern. The part of his mind that was rabidly curious concluded that she must be basing her avatar on a collection of his memories and dreams. He didn't begrudge her.
Until she put her hand on his face, he didn't realise he was weeping.
A long while later, he disentangled himself from her arms, ignoring her small whine. He turned to confront the bijū in the room—although he wasn't sure if the term applied to Kurama any longer. He looked healthier—as in 'no longer dying'. He had changed as well, coming to resemble the foxes in Kioku's world more closely. The patches in his fur were filling up slowly and his breathing was steady, his heartbeat filling the silence in his mindscape.
It would only be much later that he'd wonder at how he knew what those foxes looked like.
Stretching his hands out, he held his chakra in the position to meld a threeway. Kioku joined without hesitation, and he pulled in Kurama by himself.
Kioku's energy meshed well with chakra. He couldn't use it, but that wasn't necessary for his purpose this time. Channelling the meld, he wove it into the fabric of his mindscape, watching the cracks repair themselves. The grass bloomed, flowers painting the landscape even as majestic trees reminiscent of Hashirama's work shot up, their tops disappearing into the sky of his mindscape. Kioku laughed—a sweet, musical thing—and he could feel the laughter bubbling in his chest as well.
Holding it for a moment longer, he luxuriated in the feeling of completion before finally letting Kurama out of the meld. The ground had grown around the biju, shaping itself into a shady alcove perfect for the bijū to indulge its favorite pastime—sleeping.
He felt the faint tremble in his coils—not quite exhaustion, but the whisper of effort.
He wove again, his chakra and Kioku's energy winding around each other like the time Hinata and him… He fed that line of thought into the whirlpool that was their energies. The husks of the remaining eight were pulled into his maelstrom as he wove something new, guided only by instincts and the not-quite intuition from Kioku. Reaching for Kurama once again, he began to pour into him.
Bijū were essentially sentient, super-condensed masses of chakra and sub-slash-super dimensional energy. As long as chakra existed in whatever world they were in, they had access to all of it—in theory. They were only limited when around other bijū, and decided who got first access by their number of tails. It meant that all he had to do was expose Kurama to Kioku. Theoretically, the bijū should begin to gather chakra automatically by itself once that was done—at least according to Jiraiya.
It turned out that the old pervert was right once again.
He mentally raised a cup to the dead man as he watched Kurama. There was no visible sign of recovery, but he didn't need it. He could feel his friend.
He kept weaving into the bijū—for how long, he could not say—until Kurama looked less dead, and simply tired. Letting go of Kioku, he allowed their weave to fall apart gently. Somehow, during the entire thing, Kioku had gravitated closer to him until at the end, she was right in front of him, staring him in the eyes from a distance so small that he could see himself in those eyes that kept drawing him in.
He lowered his eyes, breaking eye contact.
Looking into Orochimaru's eyes was weird, no matter how hot she was when she was a she.
His wandering eyes followed the path of least resistance straight to Kioku's chest. It looked… He could not place it. Like it was almost…
Suddenly, it hit him. It didn't rise and fall.
He pursed his lips in thought. No matter how much she looked like his sinful fantasies rolled into one, she was decidedly not something he could even interact with. At least Kurama had been around humans long enough to unconsciously go through the motions.
He knew he was emotionally fragile. He knew that Kioku embodied the best of those who he held dearest to his heart—all but one of whom were once objects of his lust. It was all the more reason he needed to be very careful. Ninshu helped connect people, yes, but it was only an unmitigated fool that didn't see how it could very quickly be abused.
He was once that fool.
But no more.
"It seems to be quite a failure."
The words of the pompous fool who led other fools to 'inspect' them drifted to his ears. He couldn't even spare the effort to look in their direction anymore. His head was stuck in the position he'd turned it to a few…
How long ago was that?
It didn't matter.
All that mattered was that every bit he could muster was aimed at keeping his body away from the thing they planted in him. The others had no such qualms. Screeches and breathless pants kept any silence away as they struggled against their cages in a futile attempt to reach the ones watching them.
Their minders cringed as they tried to persuade the inspectors, but they were making no progress.
"Enough! We wanted supersoldiers, not mindless slavering animals. Put them down and decommission this facility. This project is over."
He almost wept in relief.