...mostly because I'm having fun picturing Bob making puppy-dog eyes at a Game Master and saying, "Please?"
Play That Song Again
Joan Jett, Ricky Bird, & Frank Carillo
Twenty-one and lost out on the street,
You won't take nobody's sympathy.
Back at home you reached for love
But you was turned away.
Black and blue, you cry most every night.
You tell your friends that everything's all right
Hoping when you close your eyes
It all will go away.
(But with the music loud
Your life gets better somehow)
All right, play that song again,
All night and never let it end;
You'll find something there for you;
All right, it can get you through.
It's though there's someone trying to break you down;
There's a million takers in this town.
It's too hard when no one even wants to understand.
Guitar coming from a radio,
Always takes you where you wanna go;
Somehow all your troubles always seem to fade away.
(But with the music loud
Your life gets better somehow)
All right, play that song again,
All night and never let it end;
You'll find something there for you;
All right, it can get you through.
Guitar coming from a radio,
Always takes you where you wanna go.
(But with the music loud
Your life gets better somehow)
All right, play that song again,
All night and never let it end;
You'll find something there for you;
All right, it can get you through.
All right all night.
All right all night.
Effect: Doug has to play this song completely through, but then if he starts a new power song within thirty seconds, the power from the new song lasts twice as long as the song itself does ("playing" the song again) -- unless it's night. In that case, the power lasts for the rest of the night.
That's not necessarily as beneficial as sounds, because he can't shut it off once the second power song has finished playing -- he has to wait for the extended duration to complete -- and he can't use any other power songs during that period.
And if you need another unpleasant side effect, Doug feels like an alienated, unloved twenty-something at least during the playing of the initial song, although the second song should cheer him up.
DHBirr
"Up, lad, up! We've villages to pillage, maidens to slay, and dragons to rescue!"
-----
Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

About a week ago I noticed some of the threads that contained a large number of links to fanfics were getting very far down the Discussion Board list and very hard to find.
I've converted a couple of the older ones into a single smaller incomplete HTML page originally for my own personal use.
It's not complete and my goal was never to create a sorted or easy to use fanfic links page so it isn't pretty.
I does contain every link from two of the older threads I've so far edited into a abridged HTML version.
Since it was originally for personal use I've made no effort to credit the board members that started the thread or added comments and links.
www.geocities.com/hmelton...iction.htm
Hopefully you can access this page directly.
Please post a message here if you can't access it.
I will leave it at it's present location with irregular updates as long as no one complains about the blatent plagerism of me editing (by cut&paste) and posting other peoples comments without crediting them.
howard melton
God bless

I'm such a pathetic Evangelion fan that I know that Asuka's birthday is the 4th of December.....
*sigh*
Even worse? Rei's "official" birthdate is March 31st.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

Is anyone else having problems getting to the RAALS site? I can't connect to it for some reason.*********
Touched By His Noodly Appendage
www.venganza.org

A blast from the past here, something I haven't worked on in years but that keeps rising up in my backbrain and demanding attention.
This one has more of a psychological theme than most of my work. It's a meditation on identity, on the various forces -- internal and external -- that shape us. Experience, memory, personality -- all of these interact in subtle ways; our reaction to what's happening to and around us, our experiences, is colored by our personality and by our memories of the past; experience then fades and becomes memory, less and less accurate as time goes by and we unconsciously edit it -- editing itself guided by subsequent experiences and personality; finally, personality itself is at least partly shaped by lying memory and recent experience. We are what we have made of ourselves, and what the world has made of us. Experience, memory, personality.
Take one of those away, and things can get... interesting.
Mind you, this should also be a rollicking good heroic fantasy with True Love, High Adventure, Mistaken Identity, High Weirdness, and -- considering the setting -- a dab of Cosmic Horror and Things From Beyond.
Welcome to the Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft.

YUME NO TORA:
Tiger of Dreams
A Twisted Tale from Beyond the Wall of Sleep
The First Night: What Dreams May Come

The world was a tunnel, damp rock walls dimly lit by patches of leprous glowing fungi. The wanderer could not remember how long he'd been walking, why he was here...or even who he was. It worried him from time to time, but there was little he could do about it.
Ahead, for the first time in memory, something different: a narrow side-tunnel led right and down; flickering, ruddy light came from somewhere deep within.
As the wanderer studied his new option, another man walked out of the darkness of the primary tunnel. The stranger was so intent on studying a large map that he nearly collided with the wanderer.
"Whoa! Sorry, didn't see you there," he apologized, then squinted at the wanderer. "Excuse me, but have we met before?"
"I was just thinkin' the same thing," the wanderer replied. "I can't quite place it, though...what was your name?"
The stranger paused. "...Y'know, I can't remember it. Or much of anything else."
"Huh. Join the club! I think my name begins with an R...Ran-something...but not much beyond that. You have any idea where we are?"
"No clue. I know I was going somewhere, someplace I really have to be...but I can't remember what or where it is, and this stupid map is absolutely NO help!"
"Can I have a look?" The wanderer pored over the ancient parchment. "Hmmm... Pingaree... Mountains of Mo... Nonestic Ocean? Jeez, I've never heard of any of this." He pointed to a dashed line. "'Nome King's Tunnel?' That's the only thing here that fits the bill..."
"No, that doesn't sound right..." the stranger muttered. "Maybe I'm using the wrong map. I've got a whole bunch in my backpack." He unshouldered the heavy pack and rummaged through it, coming up with a sheaf of similar parchments.
Ten minutes later, the two had gone through maps of Zothique, Prydain, Patanga, Yoknapatawpha County, Barsetshire, Middle-earth, Midkemia, Sosaria, Schlarrafenlande, Florin and Guilder, Hyborea, Barsoom, Opar, Pal-ul-don, and Los Angeles. None were of the slightest use.
"Well," the wanderer sighed, "there's nothin' back the way I came but miles and miles of miles and miles. This's the first branch I've found. How 'bout you?"
"Just the same," the stranger answered as he repacked the maps. "I've been walking down that damn tunnel for as far back as I can remember..."
The wanderer jerked a thumb at the red-lit side tunnel. "Looks like this's our only option. Wanna team up for the duration?"
"Sure," the stranger replied. "Looks like we'd be going the same way anyhow, Ran...ran..." He shook his head. "Damn! I almost had it! I'm sure I know you from somewhere, but..."
The wanderer stood deep in thought. Ran... something. Ran... toe? Tao? Tao-me... "I think it's somethin' like...Rantaome?" He shrugged. "That ain't it, but it's close...I guess it'll do for now. Can you come up with somethin'? I don't wanna keep usin' 'Hey, You!'"
Now it was the stranger's turn to cogitate. 'Rantaome' fancied he could see steam coming out the other's ears. "I know it starts with R, same as yours...Ryou...Ryouki! No, wait, that's not right..."
"Close enough for government work," Rantaome interrupted. "You wanna spend all day burnin' braincells? Let's go!"
"I guess you're right," the newly-dubbed Ryouki agreed. "I'm tired of staring at mushrooms anyway." With that, he shouldered the pack and set off...back the way he came!
Rantaome grabbed his shoulder. "'Scuse me, but we were goin' this way?" He pointed toward the side-tunnel.
Ryouki looked about, surprised. "Wha'...? I could've sworn I was going that way..."
"Never mind. Let's just get outta here..."

The new tunnel sloped gently down for a hundred feet or so before twisting left. As they approached the curve the distant firelight grew brighter, letting the two get a good look at one another -- and themselves--for the first time.
Both were boys of perhaps seventeen, tall and black-haired. Rantaome wore black pants and a red silk shirt with wooden ties; his hair was tied off in a pigtail. Ryouki was clad in yellow and black, a shaggy mop of hair held in check by a like-colored bandanna; his heavy pack was topped by a bamboo umbrella. When he spoke, he revealed somewhat outsize canines.
Both were now sure they'd met before. Their memories, however, remained obstinately vague.
The curve led to a stairway spiralling into the depths. The light's source was definitely somewhere below; the two descended.

"...Sixty-eight, sixty-nine...seventy," Ryouki muttered as they reached the bottom.
"Seventy? I only counted sixty-nine," Rantaome disputed.
"I was counting from the first step, and there're seventy. You want to go back and try again?"
"So was I, and I say sixty-nine!"
"Seventy," Ryouki stated flatly.
Rantaome shook his head. "This's stupid," he concluded. "How about this: there're sixty-nine and a half!"
Ryouki grinned. "I like the way you think. Sixty-nine and a half steps it is..."
At the foot of the stairway, the tunnel made a sharp right. The companions followed it...and stepped back in shock. Ahead, the tunnel flared into a great cavern...at least a hundred feet across, three hundred high, and brilliantly lit by a vast pillar of flame!
As they stood in awe, a voice rang across the chamber. "Greetings, O dreamers! Enter and be welcome! I am Nasht..."
Another broke in, "...and I am Kaman-Thah! We congratulate you...
"...on finding the Way! Enter, and be not afraid!"
His paralysis broken, Rantaome turned to Ryouki. "This what you were lookin' for?"
Ryouki, still shaken, shook his head. "I think I'd've remembered this!" he replied. "I've never seen anything like it in my life...I think."
"And did he say...'dreamers'? Let's check this out."
The companions walked slowly into the cave, trying not to gawk at its sheer immensity. Odd furnishings were scattered here and there: shelves piled high with ancient books and crumbling scrolls, a great stone altar carved with glyphs unpleasant to look upon...
Ahead, silhouetted against the flame-pillar, two tall figures waited: hoary and wizened, keen eyes peering out of vast thickets of greying hair, Nasht and Kaman-Thah projected a near-palpable aura of majesty. Completing the picture were their tall hats, reminiscent of the crowns of ancient Egypt--the word "pschents" flashed across Ryouki's lightly stunned mind.
Rantaome broke the silence first. "Um... pardon us... Can you tell me, um... where we are? And... well..."
"...where we're going?" Ryouki put in bluntly. "And why neither of us can remember anything?"
The one on the left, Nasht judging by faint distinctions in the timbre of their voices, chuckled deeply. "Ask not where you are, young ones, for this is every place and no place at all. Ask rather what you are now doing..."
"...and we shall answer," Kaman-Thah picked up, "'You are dreaming.' This answers also your third question, though not your second."
The boys stared at each other, then back at the tall old men. "This is a dream?" Rantaome finally asked. "So I'm asleep and dreaming all of you?"
"No, it's got to be me dreaming you," Ryouki insisted. "At least I hope it is, because I don't want to wake up and find out I'm a butterfly or some weird crap like that."
"Neither is the case," Nasht boomed. "You are both real beings, dreaming the same dream -- a dream that has led you both here at once, something which is most..."
"...Unusual," the other continued, an amused frown crossing his leathery face. "Unprecedented in the history of the Cavern, in fact. But not, I think, actually against any of the Rules."
"Indeed not. Shall we then address and inform them simultaneously?"
"May as well."
"Right, then." Nasht pulled himself into a slightly more towering state, and elucidated: "This, young travelers, is the Cavern of Flame -- the gateway between the two states of dreaming."
"Every human mind has its own private dreamscape," Kaman-Thah spoke, "a thing of airy fancy and little moment. At the same time, every mind touches lightly upon the realms of deeper dreaming to shape and sustain a single vast world -- the true Dreamlands of Earth."
"Most dreamers never truly visit the Dreamlands, save a glimpse or two in childhood or drug-induced stupor. It is a dangerous place, and a buffer is needed to ensure that only truly great dreamers -- the wise, the brave, the blessed, the hopelessly mad -- can enter."
"This is the buffer zone, and we are the judges. My brother and I are the eternal Priests of Dream, set here to prevent tragedy and great loss of life or sanity."
"And you, young ones, are our latest case."

There was silence for a moment, then another, as Rantaome and Ryouki tried to digest all this.
"...So... If we qualify..." the pigtailed youth managed, "you let us through, into this fantasy world? Then what? Do we ever wake up again?"
"Certainly!" Nasht laughed. "You will awaken to the real world, and when you again sleep you may -- if you so desire -- pass directly to the Dreamlands without again visiting this Cavern. It is by no means a permanent change of address -- at least, not immediately."
"Not... immediately?" Ryouki frowned. "That doesn't sound good."
"My brother, I think, enjoys worrying our guests overmuch," the other priest grinned. "A true dreamer has, in essence, two lives. Should you die in the Dreamlands, you will awaken unharmed -- but you will have forever lost access to deeper dream. But should a dreamer die first in the waking world, he may postpone final judgement upon his soul by retiring to the Dreamlands, there to live out both nights and days until Death again claims him."
The fanged boy had to admit that seemed like a good deal. "What about our memories? Will they come back?"
"Dream-amnesia is a common enough thing," Nasht mused. "It is likely that neither of you will recall this experience when you awaken -- for the moment each of you is, in effect, leading two entirely separate lives. It may pass with time, or it may linger.
"But enough of this! You have come here," he stated with a smile, "down the... Sixty-Nine and a Half Steps of Light Slumber..." (at this Rantaome, Ryouki, and Kaman-Thah winced) "...and it is our decision that you are both worthy to pass down the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Sleep, and become True Dreamers. Is it your desire, then, to enter the Dreamlands?"
Rantaome thought for a time. "I think... I think if I had all my memories with me, I'd say yes in a heartbeat. I can't really pin anything down, but I think my life's been way too stressful lately... too much excitement an' stress..."
"...They're talking about sending us to some kind of fantasy world, you know. Won't there be excitement and stress there?"
"Indeed there will, young man," Kaman-Thah interrupted. "The Dreamlands are not tame by any standards -- adventure is the order of the day, although there are islands of calm in the storm. Monsters walk the earth, evil men -- dreamers and dreamlanders alike -- plot there as they do here, and all manner of magic and mayhem can be found within."
"...I still think I should go," Rantaome concluded. "Whatever my 'waking life' is like, I think it's kinda repetitive. I'm stressed out and tired of the same old same old, y'know? Whatever's down there it's gonna be a different kind of excitement, and I'm ready for that. You?"
Ryouki nodded. "I'm going too. I was looking for something when we met... maybe I'll find it in the Dreamlands, or at least find out what it is."
The two youths turned to face the Priests of Dream. "We're ready," they said in unison, and Nasht and Kaman-Thah moved aside to reveal behind them the way down.

In these latter days much of the Dreamlands have been very thoroughly defined and explored, so that any dreamer may rely on the best-known regions to be waiting beyond the Seven Hundred Steps; the exact distance from Ulthar down the Skai to Dylath-Leen may vary by as many as five miles, but one may rest assured that the city of basalt towers does indeed lie downstream from that town where no man may kill a cat. Likewise, the geography of the three great continents and the seas that separate them is well-known; though dreamers who wander too far inland from Ilek-Vad may find themselves trapped in an unformed and chaotic waste, and reports on the land of Sarrub cannot agree on its true nature.
In ancient times, though, when the first primitive humans walked the shores of Theem'hdra, the Primal Continent a million years vanished--ah, then the Dreamlands were yet in flux, shaped and reshaped without end by the nascent dreams of mankind. But even then, even when the first human dreamer ventured down the steps of Deeper Sleep, she found the core of the Dreamlands, as it is now and ever shall remain, there awaiting her.
Thus it was that, as our heroes made their way down the Seven Hundred Steps, the walls subtly changed; neither could tell just when rough stone became polished, gleaming wood, but by the time they reached the foot of that staircase it was apparent that Rantaome and Ryouki were somehow within a living tree. And thus it was also that they opened the stout oaken door, trimmed with both horn and ivory, and stepped out into the Enchanted Wood; for the Wood lies at the heart of all the dreams of mankind.
The two dreamers looked about, taking it all in: the gnarled, twisted oaks towering above crowded out most of the morning light, leaving the forest floor to odd and unsightly toadstools and puffballs, though here and there the sun broke through into grass-carpeted clearings. The Wood was eerily silent; not a note of birdsong or whirr of insect wings disturbed the primal stillness.
"So..." Rantaome broke the hush. "This is the world of dreams? Kinda boring, don'tcha think?"
Ryouki shook his head. "Not to me. Don't you feel it? That rush of...of belonging, of being somewhere you were always meant to be..." The bandanna'ed youth spread his arms, as if to embrace the forest or the world itself. "I feel like I've come home."
(more later)
--Sam
"Gravity is a harsh mistress."

I'd meant to work on SSS and the Katsu sidestory for TXY ... and sideswiped into this, for some reason. Don't ask me, I have no idea why. It just happened. A sweet jam that had me scribbling down around 30K in one sitting. There's likely still some bugs to work out, but here's the first draft.
In all honesty, I blame the Advent Children soundtrack.
Begin.
------
Midgar
Shin-Ra Building
A peal of thunder shattered the rain drenched silence of the night, rolling clouds churning above like an ocean during a violent storm, which, in a way, they were.
To the uniformed men in the front lobby of the building - or would complex be a more apt way to describe said place? - paid it no attention.
Uniformed ... that word does not, perhaps, convey the full import of the statement.
Standard issue though it was, the uniform was both effective and made to intimidate. A helmet and torso armor atop fatigues, complete with heavy combat boots and gauntlets that were underlined with armor as well. The cloth of the fatigues was exceedingly tough, and could only be cut by the sharpest implements, or pierced by the most potent of bullets.
It was the helmet that did it, though. Covering the upper portion of the face, the triclopean lenses of the standard issue image enhancement visor seemed to extrude malice in their own right.
The men wearing those uniforms were soldiers, trained by the largest military and industrial force of the world. They had focus, they had gear, they certainly had motivation.
At the moment, that focus was attracted by the figure standing in the midst of their half circle, seemingly ignorant of the submachine guns and assault rifles pointed its way.
Powerfully built and tall, his clothes resembled those of the soldiers. The fatigues and combat boots did, at least. He wore no armor save for a shoulder guard, and a sleeveless shirt covered his torso. His face was carefully kept blank, no emotion visible on it, but what drew most attention was the unearthly glow of unnaturally intense blue-green eyes.
Or, should that be, what drew the most attention about his face?
Certainly, what drew the most attention, in all, about the man was the way he effortlessly held in his hands a blade as long as he was tall, and wide enough to give the impression of being a slab of metal that somebody had slapped sharpened edges on for the sheer heck of it.
The smears of red that ran along said blade's length, drips of it falling down to stain the lush carpet along with the rainwater dripping from its wielders sodden form, as well as the dismembered bodies of several of the soldiers' comrades that lay haphazardly strewn around the glass-paned main entrance of the building, gave enough of an indication that it was far from being merely a tool of intimidation.
"SOLDIER, First Class ..." the voice had been cool, controlled, and used to command. It rang out throughout the expanse of the lobby, halting the melee that had been taking place not moments ago.
A SOLDIER, First Class, was never unarmed. Their bodies were the weapons they always had with them. Enhanced speed, agility, strength ... even if the huge sword _were_ merely a showpiece, anything in a SOLDIER's hands was a lethal weapon.
The men keeping him in their sights knew it well enough, since SOLDIERs were supposed to be their compatriots - the Elite Enforcement of the Shin-Ra Electric Power Company.
"What you are doing is pointless," the voice continued, after the noise of the thunderclap had passed away.
Its owner, a lean, long faced and longer haired man in a plain black suit, black tie, and white dress shirt, stood on the small landing that the wide stairs at the back of the lobby led to, placing him in an overwatch position of the situation.
If Tseng, the head of the Investigation Sector of Shin-Ra's General Affairs Department, otherwise known as the Turks, were more arrogant, he'd be tempted to consider his relative position as befitting of his station. As things stood, though, in his mind it was merely a tactically advantageous position for him to take.
Balefully Mako-glowing eyes of the SOLDIER were firmly fixed upon the Turks' leader's face, though the men surrounding him were wary enough that they didn't mistake that for inattentiveness on his part.
"Maybe," the SOLDIER spoke, his voice a nearly violent hiss of breath that, nonetheless, carried well enough. Even against the backdrop of rainfall. "But it's a ..."
The impact was tremendous. In fact, it was powerful enough to not only warp and twist the metal of the Plate right outside the main entryway of the Shin-Ra Corporate Headquarters, where whatever it was had come down, but also to send cracks through the armored glass of the front of the lobby.
"... very good distraction! Cloud! Now!"
The SOLDIER moved, sword spinning ...
A fan of flaming projectiles shattered through the already weakened glass, tearing into the lobby from outside and turning it into a fiery abyss. At least for a moment.
***
Rain cut inside, soaking the floor of the laboratory, coming in through the jagged hole in one of its walls - which was also part of the building's outer wall.
He ignored it. Rain meant little to him these days.
The sound of armored boots hitting metal floor and weapon safeties being released was not so easily ignored ...
His attention, though, was elsewhere, seemingly riveted by the flashing skies beyond the rainfall.
In a moment, a decision was reached ... or perhaps merely affirmed. One hand tightened on the grip of the long barreled revolver it held, the other curled, appropriately, as if clawing at something.
Eyes narrowed.
A step turned into a jog, turned into a run, turned into a full out sprint ...
There was no hesitation as he made the leap.
The only thing the rushing guards got to see was a fleeting glimpse of a tattered red cloak, before even that was swallowed by the night's gloom.
From some sixty floors below, the echoes of an explosion could barely be heard over the staccato of raindrops against metal.
***
Cloud Strife, former Shin-Ra trooper, recent Shin-Ra guinea pig, and current ... well, whatever you'd call people who'd just done the mystical equivalent of blowing the hell out of the lobby of Shin-Ra's home office, lowered his hand.
The green glint of an orb of Materia, crystallized Mako energy, could be seen between his fingers.
Breathing heavily, the blond man returned the orb to its place in the stock of his rifle.
Materia made magic possible, accessible for humans ... but after whatever it was the experiments he'd only fully recovered from a few weeks ago had done to him, it seemed to respond to him more naturally than to anyone else he'd met.
Neither he nor his traveling companions knew exactly why this was so, though the theory was that the enhancement granted to a person by the SOLDIER process had something to do with it.
The irony being that Cloud hadn't been a SOLDIER before the experiments, and neither of his companions showed quite that level of affinity for magic, even though one had been a SOLDIER prior to the experimentation, and the other ...
... well, some things were best left unsaid.
The aftereffects of the blast of Fire he'd unleashed started to clear, even as whatever it was that had slammed down in front of the lobby started to visibly shift, despite both the fall and the result of having what amounted to passing through a wall of flame.
***
Whatever Works
presents
***
The air within the lobby was thick with smoke, dust, ash, and the smell of burned flesh.
Sound returned slowly, from the dull roar that was another thing to mark the passing of the flames to a ringing, finally resolving into a faint sound of raindrops on metal 'ground' and groans of the injured.
Tseng coughed, hauling himself upright from behind one of the heavy reception desks, eyes squinting against the acrid smoke.
The blurry shapes finally sharpened in his tearing eyes, resolving into a scene of destruction.
And an nearly unscratched Zack, ex-SOLDIER, First Class, the fading energies of a Barrier spell sparking around his form.
The Turk raised his sidearm.
***
a FINAL FANTASY VII altaverse story
inspired by FFVII: Last Order
***
The thing reared, tatters of clothing still clinging to its mishapped and burned form, flesh stretching and crawling across limbs as if wanting to ...
It recoiled as bullets struck it on the side, the barking of an automatic rifle suddenly oppressive even with the falling rain.
Turning, a forearm that suddenly became thicker than it had been just moments ago moving up to cover its head ... or what passed for it. It lacked hands, thick tentacles trailing from the wrists instead. The one not protecting the head rose up, curling back like a whip about to strike ...
A rolling, putrid greenish mass seemed to suddenly rush along the appendage's length ...
Cloud ducked, rolling aside as the creature lashed out, the tentacle smashing into the ground where he'd stood non moments ago and leaving the metal plating a corroded mess.
Even as more bullets suddenly rained down from above.
***
FINAL FANTASY VII:
Insomnia
***
He fell, body angled downwards for maximum velocity, the air rushing past him on the way.
Fifty floors, forty, thirty ...
Right into the bedlam below.
Not smooth. Not quiet. Certainly not like what he'd have preferred this to be like.
Then again, who ever said redemption was easy?
Ten floors.
His right arm came forward, the weight of the revolver in it a comfortable one. His thumb cocked the hammer.
Five floors.
Six shots, in rapid succession. Six high caliber bullets traveling straight down. Six jerks of the monster in his sights.
There was no more time to reload. He rolled, curling around his center, cloak snapping with the motion. Right hand replacing the revolver in its holster in the middle of it.
He felt the soles of his armored boots slam into the monster's body, its bulk buckling with the impact.
His left hand flashed from beneath his crimson cloak, the amber of mythril-admantine composite covering it.
The clawed metal gauntlet that adorned his left forearm and hand sunk its talons into the creature's neck.
***
by Griever
***
***
***
... verse, the first ...
... fire ...
Nibelheim
Three Months Ago
A sleeping mind wanders, bared to the shades floating below its surface, with thoughts streaming chaotically, twisting around in a manner not dissimilar to that of a whirlpool.
But when the waters calm, coming to a halt, and even the rippled disappear. When the surface is perfect in its stillness ...
... the mind delves deeper. Into the depths, on long neglected paths. The mind descends, the mind sees, and the mind remembers.
Or, one does, at least.
It keeps itself occupied. Keeps itself busy.
The shudder that went through the mind's physical extension was small. Diluted. Suppressed by stone and distance.
It was no different, in some ways, from similar ones that had come and gone at various times in the years prior.
In another time and place, which were the same time and place when viewed from a certain metaphysical point, the ripples it created would have faded without any noticeable effect, and the mind would have been lost in its reminiscences for some time to come.
Here, in the grander scheme of things, it mattered little.
Sort of like a pebble.
***
Panting.
Staggering.
Boot-clad feet on dirt ground, pressing forward with determination borne of desperation more than anything else.
Hope is a powerful motivator. Freedom, equally so. Combine the two, and ...
There were two figures, one supporting the other. Or, dragging, really.
Two figures, two sets of faintly glowing blue-green eyes, but where the blond one's gaze was distant, vacant, as if he were little more than a prisoner within the shell of his body, his dark haired companion's shone with more than just the results of Mako treatment.
His head was full of questions, his guts churning with a miasma of emotions from outright rage to fear strong enough to almost shake his determination.
He knew better than to let them actually come to the fore.
With dogged perseverance, step after step, all the while fighting against the pain just moving gave him.
It was the rule that had been pounded into his head repeatedly early on in his training. It was a rule that stuck, enough that it overshadowed all the fear and doubt he had. Even in a situation as bleak.
Survive.
And whatever else you said about them, First Class SOLDIERs were certainly survivors.
"C'mon, Cloud," Zack repeated for the n-th time, pulling the unresponsive blond man in the battered remains of a Shin-Ra trooper garb after him. His ears were still ringing, his words slightly slurred, since the aftermath of his breaking free of containment had been rather violently explosive. Enough that he'd need a bit more time to recover fully.
Not that he was likely to actually _get_ that time, but it was nice to dream a little.
There was light ahead, and although faint, it was also the only indication of a possible exit from this ... this nightmare.
The blond man tensed suddenly, eyes fluttering closed as muscles that had been cooperating with ... or at least not actively hindering
their trek flexed, veins shining through the pale skin for an instant. And shining with a pale blue-green color.
Zack moved, bringing his shoulder underneath the suddenly collapsing Cloud, hoisting him up ...
"Oh no you _don't_, buddy," his own flesh felt like it was moments away from melting off, but he gritted his teeth and barreled through the pain. "Still need to pay you back for the Reactor, so don't die on me now. Still need to make godsdamned Hojo pay for what he did to us ..."
The light, dim before, became brighter. Coming from above ... as Zack manhandled an unconscious Cloud into the bottom of a vertical shaft. A wooden walkway spiraled upwards, along the walls of the shaft, to terminate at what looked like the faint outline of a door.
A door which suddenly opened, bright light stabbing through the darkness from the other side.
The triclopean mask of a Shin-Ra trooper's helmet, or rather, the red glow of the optics thereof, was the only discernible thing .
"... right. What do you want to bet it was one of those damn bats the quack keeps as pets. _Again_. There's nothing else down there that'd have triggered the silent ..." the word 'alarm' died on the trooper's helmet-obscured lips as his optics adjusted to Low-Light ... and let him see down into the shaft.
It wasn't even a conscious thing. Zack merely went to one knee, depositing his companion on the ground and coiling to spring ...
... the trooper's surprise gave him a chance, and his muscles obeyed, even if they screamed in protest at the prospect. More so, when he unlimbered his sword, which he'd found, cast aside in the madman's laboratory, from its place across his back
A moment before he uncoiled in a leap that would have taken him a third of the way up the shaft, an unmistakable sound came from directly behind him.
The sound of a hammer being cocked.
Followed by the boom of a firearm discharging in a closed space.
The Shin-Ra trooper fell forward, and off the walkway, scarlet spraying behind him from a hole that gaped outwards from where the back of his neck had been.
Even before the noise of the discharge had passed, a crimson cloaked form threw itself past the startled SOLDIER, then upwards at one of the shaft's walls. The sound of metal on stone could be heard before the form shot upwards again, disappearing into the light of the doorway above ...
... Zack was brought out of his momentary pause by the head of the dead Shin-Ra trooper rolling to a stop against his boot.
***
He felt anger. Not just the hot, burning fury that called forth a rumble from deep within the recesses of his mind.
No. It also called an older, more familiar sort of anger.
Cold. Cold to the point of freezing.
And it had taken only one word.
One word, one name, had managed to sear past the apathy he'd shrouded himself in for the better part of the past three decades.
His hand had moved almost of its own volition, the motion as natural to him as pointing a finger was.
Then he was moving. Onwards. Upwards. Brushing past the two bedraggled ... escapees? Victims?
Both sounded accurate enough, in conjunction with that _name_.
He alighted at the top of the rickety stairway without as much as a sound, even with the armored boots on his feet, and was stepping over the target of his shot before the Shin-Ra trooper gave his final twitch.
It all came back.
The smell of gunpowder and liquid copper, heralded by thunderclaps and the clinking of brass.
Someone around the corner. The faint tinge of weapon oil, the sound of cloth against body armor.
Fast, efficient motion. Giving in to what the senses said, not what the mind could discern from them, and acting without thought.
Foot forward, a normal step with a slight twist. Lean into the turn, keeping momentum.
Always keep momentum.
Lead with the left, knock the gunbarrel aside. Press forward with the right, jabbing the extension of the hand until you feel resistance ...
... the bullet and muzzle gases tore through even the ballistic cloth, the only sound made by the discharge being muffled by flesh. The body falling back with the lead projectile coming out and pulling on it when the ballistic cloth kept it from penetrating back _out_.
He yanked the submachine-gun from the collapsing dead man, not even noticing when the bronze claws that adorned his left hand left deep gouges in the weapon's surface.
Vincent Valentine halted, and waited, in the room beyond, taking the anger and putting it away for later use.
Anger at the world, anger at the madman, and anger at himself.
Now that it had been awakened, though, it would not be put back wholly.
Restrained, yes. Delayed, yes.
Buried underneath the veil of apathy again?
No.
Not bloody likely.
Well, perhaps just bloody.
Some of the oldest life lessons he'd ever learned, all focused on one thing, came back to him.
When wronged, you don't get back at the person who wronged you. You get even with them.
Footsteps, staggering slightly with added weight and drag, could be heard coming up the stairs.
'Enemy of my enemy ...'
Red eyes glowed faintly in the gloom, the heralds of things to come.
***
High in the Nibel mountains, a lone pebble rested.
Shuddered slightly as the wind momentarily shifted.
Teetered.
And lost balance ...
... rolling downhill.
***
... verse, the second ...
... shadows ...
That the place was in disrepair was a serious understatement. The smells of crumbling tapestries and sodden carpets, moist wood, old paint, and the near-taste of dust in the air were all factors in making the realization an obvious one.
He could hear soft creaks of motion, even from the distance, and despite the obstructions that should have stopped or at least seriously muffled the sound. Like walls.
This was not really a surprise. Vincent Valentine knew well enough that his senses were just as human as his body.
Inhuman, that is.
Dust motes which were barely visible in good lighting - would have been all but invisible to him once upon a time - were now as obvious as grains of black sand floating around in a glass of crystal clear water.
The first thing he'd known after that fateful initial awakening, when he'd first born witness to all that had been done to him by the madman who called himself a scientist ... once upon a time he'd thought he'd been overwhelmed by the roar of the monster Hojo had burdened him with. Only afterwards did he become aware of the fact that the terrifying sound had been a beast's rumble only in his mind. He'd simply been unaccustomed to hearing the blood in his body rush about, to listening in on his own heartbeat.
Things he'd learned to once again subconsciously filter out by now.
Not that he'd not heard and felt the rumbling, challenging roar that drove his very soul into a rage later on.
But that was a different story altogether.
Right there and then, his concern - what there was of it - lay with the matters at hand.
One of which was stepping over the still warm corpse of the Shin-Ra trooper he'd emptied his pistol into.
Whatever tableau could have resulted was broken by the distinctive click of a magazine sliding home. The metallic digits of the graft-slash-gauntlet on Vincent's left arm pulled back the slide, letting a round into the chamber.
For a moment, the former Turk and the dark-haired swordsman eyed one-another, combatants judging a possible threat ...
The swordsman's eyes, glowing with the sort of radiance Vincent recalled seeing on one or two of the Shin-Ra operatives whom he'd observed during a past foray out of the coffin, seemed to be mockeries of his own once-brown and now crimson optics.
Mako poisoning ... it was not hard to tell on sight, yet the other signs - the ones he'd learned about during the few times Professor Gast had needed an assistant, and the ones he'd seen when surveying the site of a newly finished Mako reactor - were conspicuous in their absence.
In fact, there was an undercurrent to the way the swordsman ... 'felt' was the best way Vincent could explain it, this extra sense he'd found he gained after Hojo's experiments ... was familiar as well.
Like a distorted mirror image.
The blue-green eyes flickered down to the clawed gauntlet as the slide returned to its initial position, then back up.
Vincent considered. Then lifted the arm so that the light flickered along its surface, presenting it.
Eyes met again.
"Hojo," the former Turk said flatly, flexing the limb's digits.
The swordsman remained cautious, but nodded in reply.
***
A single snowflake, floating down from the night sky, landing to rest on top of the palm of his hand, melting away almost immediately.
Uzuki Eisen looked up into the starry sky, his eyes tracing the invisible lines between constellations with the ease of a person prone to mental wonderings in times of boredom. The dove flying from the coils of the serpent, the hare leaping in front of a charging bull ...
He really had far too much time on his hands, and it was something he himself realized easily enough.
For what it was worth, this had seemed like an important project, but he could see neither hide nor hair of what constituted this supposed importance. The whole town was Shin-Ra sponsored, had been ever since ... well, ever since something had happened here a number of years ago. What exactly that had been, he had no idea. He'd still been in grunt training back then, and that left precious little time for things like rumor or news unrelated to what the damnably sadistic drill sergeants the Company employed would come up with for them for the next day's training regime.
The occasional whispers spoke of monsters, the town burning down, and once he'd even heard about some trouble with the Mt.Nibel reactor which had taken place sometime in the past. When? Again, no idea.
Though sifting wheat from the chaff, as it were, of the Shin-Ra Armed Forces Rumor Mill - and those capitals were justified, considering it was almost an official institution in its own right - was a more arduous task than someone with any sort of job could manage without severe loss of sleep.
Uzuki hadn't bothered.
The half-wutaian may have been second generation Company, his father having been a part of the Armed Forces and even fighting in a few of the Wutai conflicts that had taken place before General Sephiroth had claimed ultimate victory there, but this afforded him precious little slack. In fact, in some ways, it made things even harsher. The Heidegger administrative machine of the Military Arm of the Shin-Ra Power Company wasn't known for its leniency.
Not even for a SOLDIER, Second Class, like he was.
He sighed, trudging onward through the sleeping outskirts of Nibelheim.
Well, it _was_ customary to give members of SOLDIER a bit of time to fully develop the physical enhancements that each level of Processing granted them. What he remembered of it wasn't pleasant in the least, though other than an intense burning of nearly all his muscles and skin, there really wasn't anything definite there that his mind hadn't blacked out afterwards. No matter the injections that the Shin-Ra eggheads had claimed would lessen the discomfort of the somewhat lengthy procedure, Mako bombardment and whatever else was involved (certainly, a lot of wires and drips) were by no means a pleasant experience.
Even being in the small percentage of eligible SOLDIER candidates without actually being given the chance for 'promotion' meant that you were in the mental and physical top 5% of the Shin-Ra troops. Half of those chosen would respond partially to Processing, gaining partial abilities and enhancements, and being ranked Third Class. A quarter of that number had potential that would let them handle further Processing, meaning more Mako treatments and chemical balancing injections, and they would be able to make Second Class in a year or so of intense training.
Uzuki still thought he smarted from some of that particular regime.
And then there was First Class, who were the cream of the crop. It was what he was working towards. What he'd been working his way up to ever since he'd been told he could join SOLDIER. The best pay, the most challenging assignments ... and the highest Clearance, which meant he had to prove he could handle sensitive information and assignments that demanded more than just simple guard duty or shooting the shit out of people.
Which was why he'd been freezing his hindquarters off at this backwater shithole of a town for the past several months ... which, admittedly, was far longer than the job should have taken. Meaning someone in the administrative branch probably messed up. He'd forwarded that concern to an old friend of his father's who still worked for the Company, and in the admin branch as well, and was hoping he'd be called back from this soon.
Patience was patience, but other than the occasional signs of a wild animals prowling along the perimeters in the spring, there was literally nothing to do here. Other than pretending that nothing was or had ever been awry about the town to passing tourists and other vermin, which, Uzuki grumbled, wasn't really pretending from his point of view.
Well, it could have been worse, he supposed. He could have been assigned to play babysitter on one of the Professor's newer projects. From what he'd heard, and it was pretty much uniform no matter from where he heard it, meaning there was some truth to the information, Professor Hojo was not someone you'd like as your immediate superior. He was rumored to be ruthless, amoral even, and borderline manic ... and those were the most positive statements the grapevine had to deliver about him.
Still, it wouldn't hurt to have a little excitement around once in a while, he thought ...
... before the flare of an explosion and the feeling of vast amounts of energy being released were both perceived, one by his eyesight, the other by his body.
He ran.
***
Zack rose unsteadily, the blade of his Buster Sword being used as an impromptu crutch as he levered himself away from the wall. Or rather, the hole in the wall.
Then the SOLDIER steeled himself, gritted his teeth, swung his weapon back up into a position of readiness, and charged.
The lobby of the Manor hadn't looked very good the last time he'd seen it. It looked even worse now. Dust, flaking pain, more dust, splintered wood. Moth-eaten carpet and a chandelier that looked like it was being held together by rust alone, and would fall down if somebody sneezed a little too hard.
Add the hole in the wall he'd just made, a splintered and broken railing of the grand staircase, the holes in the floor ... oh, and the great purple and red monster rampaging straight through the middle of it.
Of _course_ Hojo had contingencies beyond the grunts stationed to keep guard. The damnable thing had come charging down the corridor at them, and he'd barely managed to tug Cloud out of the way. The guy in red, who'd called himself Vincent Valentine and had almost literally popped up out of nowhere down in the 'dungeons', had drawn its attention away from them for a moment.
Whatever else he was, he was fast. The sort of speed SOLDIERs had to work at, and an agility that seemed to reach beyond that ... but even with that, the monster seemed to shrug off the bullets and occasional claw swipes.
When it had hurled a bolt of electrical energy at the crimson clad man, Zack had decided that they weren't going to be running away until this thing had been put down. Basic tactics, really. Don't turn your back on something that's got the ability and inclination to shoot it.
That Valentine had lured it to the lobby, arguably the most spacious place in the Mansion, was more likely quick thinking than dumb luck, especially since he seemed to know the place's layout.
Yet another question.
There seemed to be a lot of those going around. The only thing Zack actually knew about the guy was his name, and that he seemed to have a matter to settle with Hojo. Give the metallic limb ... well, the swordsman could guess at least a bit of what that matter entailed. He wasn't sure he wanted to know more.
The monster had been reeling from a shot that had struck its knee when Zack had leapt from the landing the main stairway in the lobby led to, burying the sword in its grotesquely large head and down ...
Then he'd been shaken off, complete with sword, and backhanded into a wall. Even as his target had shrieked an oddly, disturbingly human cry of pain.
Valentine bounced from the wall, coming in low and fast, ducking under the creature's swing and planting an armored boot in its face. He pressed his gun's barrel down alongside the boot, and fired, before pushing off and away in a flurry of scarlet cloth.
The creature took a step back, grabbing at its head and shaking it, and Zack planted his feet, adjusted his grip, and swung the slab of sharpened steel he called a sword in a wide, powerful arc ...
... which was deflected by a purple forearm. The beast had lost its red coloring somewhere along the line, it looked like, and as his sword blade skittered from its block without leaving more than a moderately deep gash when Zack's mind was screaming at him that it should have cut the limb cleanly off, the SODLIER realized it was more than just a cosmetic change.
He brought the flat of the blade between himself and the creature, in time to catch a meaty fist on it and have the force of the blow hurl him up and back. His feet skidded, kicking up trails of dust, when he landed, bleeding off the last of the kinetic energy the attack had imparted on him. Still, he managed to keep his balance.
And why the hell had Valentine just _sat_ there, not moving, ever since that last attack he'd made?
The beast seemed intent on charging him, throwing its center of mass forward ...
... when a red flash erupted form off to the side, and Zack's eyes widened as he saw Cloud standing on the landing above the lobby, oblivious to the drop he'd take if he were only an inch further because of the lack of railing on that particular portion of said landing.
The blond man stared at the creature, but the SOLDIER got the impression the eyes were still looking past it, towards something he couldn't define. They were still flat, seemingly soulless ...
... the red orb Cloud clutched in the hand of his outstretched right arm glinted in the dim light, and then seemed to spark with power that was suddenly saturating the lobby.
Tendrils of azure and aquamarine energy wound their way along the blond man's arm, merging with the materia orb's surface, even as Cloud seemed to be overshadowed by something.
The sound of hoof beats.
A crack of thunder.
A ghostly shape formed, armored and mounted atop a white steed with far too many legs to be a normal horse. It reared, the mounted figure drawing back an arm that held a long, wicked ended spear.
The form, the weapon, the very presence seemed too large for the confines of the available space.
It was then that Zack realized what it was. He'd seen something similar a few times, most notably when he'd been to Wutai early in his career.
The sight of a huge serpent bearing down on him, a veritable tsunami in its wake, was not one he'd ever likely forget.
Time seemed frozen, like it had on that day years ago, as the summoned Odin cast his spear.
***
Reality snapped back around them almost violently, leaving Vincent with a brief feeling of vertigo as the creature below reeled, a deep gouge in its hard skin and flesh, purple blood splattering to the floor from where the summon's weapon had struck it.
The spiky haired swordsman was rushing, not to finish the job but towards the form of his comrade, the one who'd summoned, who was in the process of falling to the lobby floor after he'd crumpled as a result of the mana expenditure.
He didn't waste time, slamming the last magazine he had on him into the butt of the Shin-Ra P55A Quicksilver pistol.
For others, the perch that the rickety wooden railing of the landing above the lobby, the part of said railing that was still intact that is, would have been too unsteady. He felt no such thing.
The reeling monster was in his sights momentarily, shaking its head wildly and shuddering for some reason, and he depressed the trigger.
It seemed to tense as the hammer fell, bulbous eyes flickering towards the weapon and body moving ...
The shot that would have hit otherwise merely grazed it ...
He spun, then, stepping closer and out of the possible arc of fire before Vincent could compensate. The gun went off. His sleeve tore at the elbow, loose cloth billowing in the momentary draft of the rubber bullet's passing.
Vincent shook his head in bemusement, thumbing the safety back on and popping the magazine, replacing it with loaded with live ammunition before sliding the weapon back into its holster.
The man wasn't as tall as Vincent, standing at somewhere between five nine and five ten, but he was stocky and had a brawler's build.
"I never thought I'd see you miss," came a voice from off to the side. Both suit clad men turned, though not with the sort of sharpness that the motion would have been carried out with had they been unaware of the observer. "Not at this range."
"Actually, it'd be harder if he were farther off," the stocky man said. "I'm just seeing where he's pointing it and trying not to be there. It takes less effort to adjust aim when you're farther off. And Vince would still kick my ass seven ways from Sunday if I actually got close enough."
"Was there something you needed, Professor?" the gunman asked, nodding his affirmation to the other Turk.
"Now that you mention it," Gast rubbed his chin thoughtfully, the nodded. "Yes, Vincent. I was wondering whether you could help me with something."
"Of course, Professor," the addressed man replied, then turned to his collegue. "We'll continue this another day, Emil."
"Right, boss," Emil Vachon, junior member of the Turks, nodded. "No problem."
The creature went down, one huge hand clutching at the bleeding wound, the other digging its fingers into the skin on its head hard enough to draw blood from there as well ...
The gun in Vincent's hand jerked once, twice ... momentarily, the shuddering of his target stopped, body moving on its own accord as the thick forearms took both shots, bullets hardly penetrating where they should have struck vulnerable eyes.
The crimson clad man shot forward like a bat out of hell, cloak making him seem little more than a blur of motion, outstretched gun the only discernible portion of his body as the sidearm barked, making his target twitch and twist its bulk in evasion and defense against the projectiles with each shot.
One huge arm shot forward, fingers reaching to crush the attacking man, only to miss him as Vincent threw himself to the floor, rolled, and came up with his left arm leading. Mythril-admantine alloy claws took the opening that wouldn't have been there had the opponent not still been reeling from the injury the summon had inflicted, ripping and slashing at its armpit, splattering further arcs of purple blood in their wake.
The monster roared, staggered ... and fell to its knees, eyes to muzzle with Vincent's pistol.
There was the oddest expression that crossed its face, disbelief, fear, worry, pain ... but a warped form of relief seemed to overwhelm all those.
Vincent Valentine had always had an excellent kinesthetic sense. Reading body language had come easy for him, and after a year with the Turks he'd honed the ability so that he was able to recognize someone by the way they moved alone. Mannerisms, little clues. In a way, it was more accurate than a fingerprint.
In that moment, he wished it wasn't.
He pulled the trigger, the last round of the magazine leaving his weapon at near point blank range.
The sound of the weapon discharging seemed deafening.
***
Uzuki stared.
The demolished Manor lobby, walls marked with bullet holes and slash marks, and the occasional ... well, huge hole, as if someone had been thrown clear through ...
... a corpse, definitely not human. Purple blood.
Three Shin-Ra grunts who'd arrived before he had lying on the front lawn, two cut apart and one looking like he'd been on the wrong end of something with claws.
The SOLDIER shook his head slowly, then blinked. Twice, for good measure.
Nope, still not going away.
How was he ever going to explain this?
***
The truck roared to life, wheels biting into the packed dirt road as the driver put his foot to the floor.
Two figures rested in the back of the three wheeled pickup, one prone and unresponsive, the other burning the image of the receding town into his mind's eye, even as his crimson optics looked for signs of pursuit.
None seemed forthcoming.
"Goodbye, Emil," the figure spoke, its voice little more than a whisper.
***
------
NEXT UP, ... dust ... , where Our Heroes try to gain headway in their run from Shin-Ra pursuit, but run into unexpected complications in a place of rock, sand, and knowledge.
Coming ... err, sometime this year?
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

Quote:

---

"The Revolution is coming, Miss Arisugawa, and the True Prince
wants to know -- will you stand with her, or with the Usurper?"

---

Gaurdian Angel - File 01: Breakage and Repair
Now ready for prereading!
Email me at blackaeronaut at yahoo dot com with prefered file format so I can send it to you.
A question for Bob:
Say, Bob, would you like to host this fic for me? I guess I could have it on Wikispaces, but I'd rather have it up where it might garner a little more attention. If not, could you point me at a fic hosting site other than fanfiction.net?-NeoRaven
"I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity." -Edgar Allen Poe
Sponsored by Black Aeronaut Technologies -
Aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer.-NeoRaven

"I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity." -Edgar Allen Poe

Sponsored by Black Aeronaut Technologies -

Aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer.

TEENAGE GENIN NINJA HEROES
chapter 5
DESTINY
JULY, 12TH YEAR AFTER THE ATTACK OF THE KYUUBI
Bakusuta Neshan, Konohagakure no Sato no Tokubetsu Jounin and his opponent stared at each other for a long, hating moment, and then his favorite student, Haruno Sakura's, nightmare doppelganger drew herself up and spoke. "You'd have eaten Orochimaru alive. But I'm better than he is, and now you're mine."
He closed his eyes for a moment, then let his head fall - so that she wouldn't see the triumph in his face.
"RAITON: TATSURAKURAI NO JUTSU!"
Tatsurakurai no Jutsu, the Dragon Thunderbolt, was the most chakra-intensive elemental ninjutsu ever created. It was also one of the least efficient, which was occaisionally a blessing in disguise. For a ninja who insisted on regarding it merely as a destructive attack, it was impossibly wasteful - but, one who was ready to recognize the advantages granted by - pardon the pun - the shock value of its blinding brilliance and deafening report could make it an extremely useful part of their overall strategy.
Regenerating her body to even the extent neccessary to overwhelm Neshan's battered carcass - after the expenditures of the earlier fight, and supporting the demands of three seperate ressurections - had cost her almost all of her remaining chakra - so much so that even the relative pittance needed to maintain the Byakugan was too great a cost to spare... which meant that Naruto's attack was a true blindside, and knocked her effortlessly across the battlefield to slam into and through the trunk of an unfortunate tree. It swayed, leaned, and finally crashed to earth, and then there was a moment of silence broken by the brushy clatter of small branchlets falling loose and tumbling through its foliage before the clearing echoed with a wordless shriek of rage that was intimately familiar from the all-too-common times when Naruto gave in to temptation and indulged his prankster's appetites at his female teammate's expense.
Part of the crown of the fallen tree exploded, sending branches large enough to be fully grown trees in their own right flying and tumbling end over end through the air as a red and pink blur erupted from the leaves and flashed across the battlefield towards her attacker. Naruto's eyes widened, and he tensed to dodge, but even his astonishing endurance had been badly taxed by the ninjutsu he had just used, and before he could even begin to move her hand flashed out and snatched a drifting thread of glitter from the air in front of her as she planted her feet and skidded to a halt.
She stared at what she had caught for a moment, then sneered and looped the wire around her palm and -yanked-. The thin strands of metal bit deeply into the flesh of her palm, but Sasuke was hauled bodily out of his blind and into her reach. He twisted as he fell, trying to ready himself for the blow he knew was coming, but she swatted his block aside with a single casual hand, then slammed the open palm of the other into the center of his chest a split second before he touched down.
The blow broke several of his ribs - not all, not enough to make the entire ribcage give and jab sharp fragments of bone into vital organs, but some - and knocked him back to tumble limply across the ground before her.
It also gave Sakura - the younger Sakura, the real Sakura, the one with skin clear rather than scarred, and aquamarine eyes rather than Frankensteinish red and white - the opening she needed to lunge out of cover and into a furious fullisade of blows that seemed to hammer in from every direction at once...
To no avail, as the older kunoichi shrugged them off like the waving of a baby's arms and slammed one knee into her younger mirror's stomach before straightening that leg and sending her victim flying as her hands came up to begin the seals for the finishing blow.
The Genin forced herself to her feet, ignoring the throbbing pain of internal bleeding in favor of the more immediate danger of that... nightmarish copy.
Who was doubled over, on her knees in agony. Sakura hesitated, and her doppleganger raised her head to glare at Neshan. "Tessa," she hissed, and he smiled.
"In the smoke from those explosion notes."
"You'll pay," hissed a voice like the bowels of hell, and then she teleported away.
* * * * *
At first, by some mutual, unspoken agreement, they didn't talk about it, instead concentrating on healing their wounds - as far as they could be - and making ready for the night.
Eventually, however, their camp was as comfortable as it could be made, and the questions had to be asked. Neshan levered himself up to sit against a tree and looked his three students in the eye. "I guess I owe you some answers."
Both of the boys looked at Sakura.
The team's sole kunoichi took a long, ragged breath, then looked up from staring at her own white-knuckled fists. "That... she was me. Wasn't she? Somehow."
He took a breath of his own, let it out, then nodded slightly. "After a fashion." He paused to let them grope for something to say for a moment, then explained. "The way I understand it, is that time... branches. For every decision, every chance that -this- could happen or -that- could happen, there are two futures, one for this and one for that. As we live, we... observe, decide, which actually happens... That woman was pulled from... a future which is no longer possible."
She had tears in her eyes, and her voice was pleading. "I won't... become..."
He hesitated a moment, then, "No."
She swallowed. She'd known him long enough to recognize that mannerism. "You're lying."
Neshan looked away. "No one can know the future for certain. No matter how insane or ridiculous the possibility, it is, by definition, possible. So... I can't promise that there's absolutely no chance of your becoming... something just as bad. But I can't say that about myself, either." He smiled, then, trying to reassure her. "Can you even understand... how she got that way? Can you see yourself doing it?"
She had wrapped both arms around her stomach and bowed her head, as though trying to ward off some chilling wind. "...yes," she whispered.
Her teacher looked stricken, and his eyes darted, trying to find some way to convince her otherwise.
"I can't," Naruto said. "In her eyes... she was so afraid, so scared. The Sakura-chan I know could never be like that. She's, -you're-, too strong to be that small."
She sniffled and scrubbed her eyes dry with a fist, then gave him a smile like a flash of sunlight on a cloudy day.
Sasuke's voice had broken early, and the roughness from the way it had been handled during the earlier fight dropped his baritone into a threatening rumble. "How do you know that?"
Neshan took a deep breath, then let it out in a huff. "When I was... twenty-five, I think it was... I was living in a city a long way from home, working as a teacher. I got home from work and there was a man in my apartment. He said that he was... an agent for a worthy cause. That he was, if not a god, then something close enough that the difference would never matter to me.
"He did some things... provided enough evidence that I had to take him seriously. Then he told me that there were... others... equal to him and his, but opposed. Dark. Dangerous."
"Like Kyuubi?" Naruto asked.
"Far worse. That the two factions were engaged in a struggle along lines that were... close enough to how we look at good and evil, but that they couldn't battle directly. That the backlash from that sort of struggle would destroy the reality they all wanted preserved, for one reason or another.
"So, instead, each of them recruited agents, champions, who they could move to other worlds to work for their cause.
"Which was why he was talking to me."
Sasuke nodded, fitting the pieces together. "And, if you're an agent of one side, then that alternate Sakura is your opposite."
The Jounin smiled and settled back slightly, then winced as the motion irritated his damaged shoulder. "Exactly."
Naruto squinted. "Huh. If these gods are equal, shouldn't you be that... person's equal?"
Neshan made a sort of 'more or less' wave. "The way he explained it to me was that each side kept a running total of 'points' that they could expend recruiting and outfitting their agents. Grabbing That Woman the way they did, the bad guys have spent a lot of points on this world, but they've had to compromise on other fronts to do so. I'd never defeat her in a million years - but if I can teach -you- to do it, I win anyway, and even... even if everything goes wrong for us, my patrons have been able to use the points they saved by only getting me to win victories on dozens of other worlds."
Sasuke blinked, and both of his louder teammates were a little pale. "You really think we could..." Naruto whispered.
"There's a -reason- I call you guys the Junior Legends."
Sakura swallowed audibly. "But... wouldn't you two have arrived at the same time? If you were supposed to oppose each other?"
"I'm not -completely- without support, remember. Arriving early was one of the bonuses I got - along with a certain degree of foreknowledge."
Sasuke gasped, and Neshan met his eyes. "Yes, I knew about your clan."
Sakura and Naruto went deathly quiet and met each others eyes for a moment, trading silent messages. Then, subtly, almost imperceptibly, they slipped a little closer to Sasuke and turned to face their teacher.
The older ninja observed their consolidation with a certain amount of satisfaction. Not a moment of thought or a word spoken needed for them to come together in mutual support - exactly what they'd need later on. Then he sighed and leaned his head back against the trunk of the tree, looking up at the sky.
"What I know - knew - was only one of an infinite number of possible courses of events. The slightest change - one person thinking of one thing at one time that they otherwise wouldn't have - could snowball and then suddenly nothing looks the way it would have. Having your clan present and alive would have been far more than a minor change, and jeapordized everything I'm responsible for seeing done."
Sasuke was trembling, with his lips drawn back from his teeth and hands fisted so tight their knuckles were pure white. "-You-..."
"For all that, though... My last advantage was a... a degree of intuition into which changes would matter and which wouldn't. It wasn't important that your family actually be gone, merely that... they seem to be.
"So we tried to arrange that - genjutsu, spies, a plan... we hoped that... by using the right kind of illusions, by being ready ahead of time, we'd be able to smuggle the Uchiha into hiding, while still making Itachi - and everyone else - think that he had killed them."
Sakura laid a supporting hand on her teammate's shoulder, but he wasn't reacting to anything at all, and Naruto picked up the slack by looking at their teacher hopefully. "So, they're..." his voice trailed off at the other's expression.
"...a few."
"What?"
"The first steps went off perfectly - what you saw that night... none of -that- actually happened. But later... someone talked. He found where they were being hidden until we could move them to some secure location. There were five safehouses. He missed the smallest of them, but the others..."
So high, then such a dissapointment. "Chichiue and Hahaue... they'd have been at the largest. Leading."
"Yeah."
Sasuke closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His parents were gone, but he still had other family. "Can... can I go see them? The ones who..."
"No."
The Genin's flashed open and his fists clenched, digging up handfuls of dirt, and his voice was choked and harsh. "No?! You tell me that my clan, my -family- that I've been mourning for, for -years- is -alive-... that I've been -lied- to - by you, by -everyone- - and now you won't even show the -fucking- grace to let me -see- them?!"
Neshan dropped his eyes from the sky and met Sasuke's gaze glare for glare. "No, because a mission, a plan, which has been in the works longer than -you've- been -alive- - a mission which is -vital- to the wellbeing of thousands of individuals, to the survival of Konoha, to the very fate of this world as a whole - rests, utterly, on a certain, very well-informed individual believing that you and your brother are the -only- surviving Uchiha. Because you are being -watched- by his agents. Because even the -slightest- chance that you'd be followed and the ruse discovered is too much. No."
Even choked and raging, Sasuke could think quickly. "I'm bait."
"Yes."
They glared for another moment, and then the younger ninja's eyes dropped. "...How long."
"Not more than a year."
"Swear it."
"On my honor as a ninja, our intelligence on the enemy's plan indicates that he will move -exactly- as soon as we provide a given stimulus. The last element of our counteroperation will be in place no later than this August, presumably leading to action some time in November or December."
"He'll try and take him at the Chuunin Exam?" Sakura asked.
"Yes."
Sasuke took a deep breath and tilted his head back to look at the sky, and some subliminal tension in his features seemed to flow away. "I can wait that long."
The others relaxed also, Naruto with an audible sigh, but then Sakura blinked. "Wait, if you knew about her like -that-, what did Haku-san tell you?"
"Until I talked to him, I had no idea of her -name-... I knew to expect someone from-" he made another vague little wave of his hand, "-_elsewhere_, but who that would be, or where they'd be from... he was the one who gave me that piece."
"Why didn't you tell me then?"
'Huh?' Naruto mouthed at Sasuke.
'Don't ask me, moron.'
"At first, I was hoping to avoid her, at least for now," Neshan admitted. "And later, well, there wasn't time."
Sakura frowned. "I guess so..."
"What does 'tessa' mean?" Sasuke threw out, breaking the awkward silence that followed.
Their teacher seized the opportunity with both hands. "It's a poison that inhibits the body's ability to generate and carry chakra. It's not terribly dangerous if you know it's there, because it doesn't last very long and because it can't make you... able to use less than you're currently using. But, if your usage dips while it's in your system, then trying to bring it back up will be massively painful for as long as the poison lasts... and, once it's completely absorbed, will no longer be possible at all.
"For a moment there, near the very end, she relaxed completely. Right now, Sakura, her chakra capacity is actually lower than yours, despite the difference in experience. She'll still be able to grow her chakra naturally, but if you can match her -rate- of growth then you'll always have that advantage. Either way, it'll be years before she's ready to match against a Jounin again."
All three of his audience sighed slightly. Knowing that was a relief, knowing that, next time, they'd at least have a fighting chance rather than a forlorn hope.
Then Sakura had a horrible thought. "Sensei? Are -all- of our missions going to be like that?"
* * * * *
"'Neechan!" Sakura glanced up at the shout, but still barely had time to catch the lavender-and-black blur before it could slam into her midsection. She had expected that response, of course, but -not- the instant she opened the door. "Hey, hey! Careful, chibikko! I got stabbed there!"
"What?!" Haruno Katakuri yelped and flinched back, eyes flicking up and down her three-years-older sister's height, looking for some sign of injury. "Omigod! Are you okay?! I didn't hurt you, did I?"!
Angelic smile - -too- angelic. "I missed you?"
Sakura squinted. "Okay, what did you do?"
"Who, me?"
"-Yes-, you - I've had a hell of a week," the ninja of the family snarled, not above playing the sympathy card to get her way, "I'm looking forwards to taking a -break-, and the last thing I need is to spend th-"
"Sakura!" their mother cheered, swooping in and sweeping her oldest daughter into a smothering hug. Unfortunately, as glad as the girl was to see her mother for the first time in two months, one of her arms was clamped -right- across the wound that That Woman's summon had put in her back, and it -hurt-.
Sakura hissed in pain, and slipped out of the hug with a careful twist and a gentle application of leverage - she could have done it by main strength, but there was no sense disturbing -both- of them with how much she had changed even since graduation. Her mother unconciously smoothed out the wrinkling the maneuver had left in one silk sleeve and blinked at her daughter in confusion mixed with hurt.
She tried to smile reassuringly, but anticipatory dread made it hard. After all the talking and persuasion it had taken to reconcile her parents with her chosen career and convince them that she'd be -just- -fine-, telling them hse'd been injured, and on her first time out, yet, was -not- going to be pleasant. "I'm glad to see you, too, Hahaue, it's just... Hug a little higher, please? That area's still kind of sensitive."
"'Still kind of...?'" Haruno Asuna's eyes widened in sudden horror, and she patted her hands aimlessly across Sakura's shoulders and arms, reassuring herself that her daughter was really there. "You were hurt! Darling, are you-"
She cut her mother's rapid stream of words off with a single gentle finger across the lips. "I'm fine, Hahaue. Just fine." She paused for a split second, and cocked her head. "Is Papa home today? So I can explain everything at once?"
"Right here, sweetie." Unlike his wife, Chairman Haruno Saffuron of the Haruno Trading Group was a large, powerfully built person, as those born into the Haruno clan tended to be, and his quick hug seemed to swallow his daughter's slender frame entirely. "What did you need to explain?"
The latest heir of a shinobi tradition stretching back centuries too a deep breath, then began. This was -not- going to be fun.
* * * * *
"Iruka-sensei! Iruka-sensei!"
'It was hard for you, wasn't it, Naruto?'
Iruka-sensei wouldn't have said that if he didn't - not -then- of all times. He wanted his student to do well, to be happy and successful, so knowing how well the mission had gone should make him glad.
It was kind of sad to think of it that way, with what had ahappened to Tazuna-san and all, but the nightmarish creature Sensei had taken to calling 'That Woman' had been unbelievably strong even for a Jounin, strong enough that just getting away with their lives would have been a victory, let alone driving her off so that the bridge could be finished from the plans its late designer had left.
Sensei had said that he'd talked the Naminokuni authorities into counting that as satisfying their contract, in return for his reccommendation that the inevitable mission upgrade -not- be added to that contract's cost. Sensei'd also said that it'd likely be counted as an S-class mission, which'd go a long way towards getting him the recongnition - all three of them, really, each for their own reasons - wanted and needed.
So Iruka-sensei would be glad to hear about it, and with the Academy teacher having been the first, the very first to care about -him- for any reason at all...
Naruto would do almost anything to make Iruka-sensei glad.
It wasn't a school day, and it was almost noon, and Iruka-sensei had told him once, when they were sharing ramen during the rainy summer months when almost everything in Hinokuni ground to a halt, that the new Genin would always be welcome in his home.
So he only knocked twice, quick bangs of knuckles on wood, before throwing the door open and charging inside.
Iruka's apartment wasn't all that large even by the modest standards of administratively postd Chuunin - a single room with enough space for a bed and a table and a couple of chairs without feeling -too- crowded, and a little counter and sink and two-burner stove along one wall by the claustrophobic closet that held the toilet - so Naruto was able to take in the entire space in a single glance.
He had been willing to barge in like he had because he knew that it was too late in the day for his teacher, a habitually early riser even when he -didn't- have a class to teach, to still be asleep - yet there he was, mostly buried under the bed's badly rumpled covers. "Iruka-sensei!" he yelped. "Are you okay?! Or sick?! Do you need-"
A pair of shuriken thunked into the wood of the door frame beside his head, and a minimal shift from within the pile on the bed found the intruding Genin fixed by a baleful, if sleepy, glare. "go 'way..." she hissed, then flopped her head back down into the curve of her host's neck.
Belatedly it occurred to Naruto that Iruka-sensei was not in the habit of leaving clothes strewn randomly around his apartment, and neither did he own a Tokubetsu Jounin coat or black miniskirt. Further, although her hair had been the right lenth, neither face nor voice nor bare, scarred shoulder had borne much resemblance to those of his adoptive elder brother - or even a man at all, for that matter.
The graceful thing to do would have been to apologise politely, turn, then leave quickly and quietly, being careful to close the door on his way out.
"GYAGH!" Naruto screamed, and ran for his life.
* * * * *
Hyuuga Neji looked up at the man who had just walked into his cell, and tensed. Hiashi met his nephew's gaze for a moment, then sighed and looked down. Neji had been learning the subtle cues of his uncle's body language for literally his entire life, and could see that something in his own demeanor had answered the question the older man had entered to room intending to ask.
"I heard your conversation with Hinata after your hearing," the head of their clan said, calling the memory to the front of Neji's mind. Their talk - argument, to give it its proper name - had been nothing new, with her trying to wrap him up for her larder with sweet, promising words and him castng the attempt aside, both of them going back over ground they had trod before.
"What of it?"
"When I was sixteen... My father told me the 'duties,'" his voice gave the word a vicious turn that made Neji leave off his stubborn glare at the back wall of the cell and turn to meet his uncle's eyes. "of the Main House to the Branch. I tried to ignore it. I tried to change it. I said I wouldn't hurt my brother that way... They said I -had- no borther!" He snarled the words like they still burned, like he was an inch away from wailing them. "If you believe nothing else I say today, though, believe that the only reason I stopped trying was that everything I did, the old men -chose- to take as rebellion by those they controlled, and punished through the seal..."
The boy's lips were drawn back from his teeth as he finished taking in his uncle's words. "You're a -liar-," he hissed. "I -saw- you use it. I -saw-..."
"-Yes-, you saw," Hiashi snapped, with a thickness in his voice and tension in his jaw that said as much as any number of tears. "You saw the -least- those old bastards would have accepted for what I sensed - for what I couldn't have hidden if I tried!"
"How do -you- know that?"
"Because it had happened before! I tried so many times, but I could -never-... I never..."
No more snarl, now, but eyes still cold. "And now?"
He looked away, and spoke quietly. "I won't try to claim I've always honored the promises I made, then. Not as well as I should have. But there have been no new curse seals since my grandfather's death - -will- be none, while I live - and I can at least give you and Hinata the support and protection Hizashi and I never had."
"And the Council?"
"They'd already stolen my brother from me even years before he died. What do I owe -them-?"
There was silence for a long moment. "This can't make up for sending my father to die rather than pay for your own actions," Neji said, almost mildly.
His uncle flinched, then took a deep breath. "'So please tell this to Neji,'" he said, voice not entirely his own. "'That I am choosing death of my own will, to protect my son, my brother, my family, and the entire village... Brother... I wanted, just once, to disobey the Hyuuga destiny... I wanted to choose my own destiny, that's all.' ...That was the last thing Hizashi ever said to me..."
* * * * *
"Absolutely not."
"Hahaue?" She had been afraid of this.
"You are telling me that this supposedly -safe- mission ended up involving -poison- and, and -torture-, and -murder-, and, and we're supposed to let our little girl stay involved in something that only a -fool- would think wouldn't get even -worse-?!" Asuna's voice had started her statement flat and brittle, but it rose steadily towards the end. "No! You're, you're going to stay -home-, and -safe-, with a wonderful husband and no more scars and beautiful children and... and..." abruptly, she seemed to run out of words, and sat a moment with her jaw working before she burst into tears.
Sakura hopped over the table - a horrible breach of manners, of course, but if Hahaue was distracted lecturing her least elegant daughter then she -wasn't- worrying about... But she was too upset to notice or care about the action as her daughter settled in beside her and wrapped gentle arms around her shoulders. "Hahaue? Hahaue, please. It's all right - I'm fine, I'm safe, I'm right here and I'll be good as new by tomorrow..." she pleaded.
Saffuron reached out and laid his hand gently across his daughter's cheek, and for once none of the half-a-dozen siblings clustered around the edge of the drama complained about the favoritism. "And next time?" he asked softly, with a worried look in his eyes.
Asuna was not a woman given to physical contact or open displays of affection, and it was a measure of her distress that she leaned into her daughter's embrace rather than reasserting the aura of serene dignity that was usually as much a part of her as the perpetually-worn pair of gorgeously inlaid combs that had been the first gift she ever received from the man who would later become her husband. "There won't -be- a next time," she hissed frantically.
Sakura turned her head slightly to nuzzle into her father's caress, and started rocking in place slightly to try and smooth out the tension singing through her mother's body. "Everything we talked about before I left is still true. Most missions aren't anywhere near as bad as this one. Neshan-sensei even said that this was the worst one -he'd- ever had." She paused for a moment, then took a deep breath and said the hurtful thing her sense of honesty demanded. "But... even if none of that were true, I still couldn't stop."
Saffuron's jaw tensed slightly, and Asuna paled and seemed to shrink in on herself.
"I couldn't walk out and leave my friends, my comrades, in danger when I might have helped them."
[Especially,] whispered the shadowed voice of her conscience, [when the danger is -you-.]
* * * * *
The atmosphere in the exercise room was already tense and cold when a pair of Branch Family guards led Neji out into view, with his cousin Hanabi padding quietly along behind.
Hyuuga Inei was making a speech, but Hanabi tuned his voice out and ignored him just as thoroughly as she ignored the official witnesses, Main and Branch families alike, standing solemnly along the chamber's walls. Her concentration was reserved solely for her sister.
Once, before Uncle Junnan had left, she had thought Hinata was wonderful - so pretty, tall and elegant (at least to a six-year-old's eye), as mature in carriage as some court beauty as she stood by Uncle's side, as lovely and awesome as the mother enither of them could remember.
Then Uncle was gone, and the illusion came crashing down. The quiet but unyielding defender who had warded her from the jealousies of the other children of the clan couldn't string three words together without stuttering. The deft fingers that had pulled such beauty from a loom fumbled if they tried to so much as knot a piece of string. The gentle hands that had guided her through the first steps of her instruction in the Jyuuken couldn't swat a gnat, let alone deal a true blow.
For a long time, Hanabi had hated her sister for betraying her faith like that, but now it just made her sad, as they faced each other in the plain black body-gloves clan custom mandated for a student of the Jyuuken, quietly sad for the distance between them.
So, shocked as she was, when Hinata stepped forward to sweep her into a hug, she returned it fiercly, and stared as they stepped back, puzzled at the words her sister had whispered in her ear.
"Begin!" Inei called, and Hanabi lunged, struck, just as their matches had always gone before, since almost before she could remember.
This time really was different - rather than dodging or blocking, her sister counterstruck, meeting her blow with her own hand and a flare of chakra that, to the sensitivity of an active Byakugan, was almost blinding.
The younger girl fell back, reassessed, but even the split second that took was too long and she found herself hopping narrowly over an arcing leg sweep that trailed blue-white fire along the floor of the training hall. The palm thrust came while she was still in the air and lacked the traction to evade, so she had to block it. Some instinct - prompted perhaps by the flaring power behind her sister's previous strikes - made her do so with both hands, one braced behind the other to meet the strike, and both of them reinforced with the full weight of her chakra.
It was barely enough.
The physical impact of blow alone was enough to knock her back out of engagement range, and both of her palms felt like solid disks of fire - even in comparison to the arcing chains of sparkling agony shooting up through her forearms and elbows.
Chakra burn occurred when a person's inner coils were forced to carry more power than they were prepared for. In a minor case - such as she could identify hers as being - it was 'merely' painful, as the coils were abrupty forced open to the neccessary level. The degree and scope of the pain, however, said quite clearly that that single quick strike had come very near indeed to -not- being minor.
Said that the sister she had so hated for being less the hero, for being -weaker- than a still younger Hanabi had worshipfully believed... was -easily- powerful enough to shatter her entire chakra system with a single strong blow.
The words Hinata had whispered in her ear before the start of the match made so much sense now. 'I'd do -anything- to protect you... except kill an innocent.'
The fear that had made it so easy to defeat her older sister hadn't been of pain, or of failure - it had been of -herself-, of what she might do with a single loss of control.
Her father had tossed her like that in their practice matches often enough that she came back on balance and into stance without a hitch. Their eyes met across the dozen or so feet between them, and Hanabi had to giggle. "Baka," she said, and didn't realize she was crying until she had to sniffle to continue. "Baka! I don't need a protector - I need a -sister-."
The heir of the Hyuuga swallowed softly. "But..."
"I'm strong," she said. "I won't break."
A deep, slow breath, and a smile that, for the first time in neither knew how long, was hopeful as much as it was sad. "Okay." The soft, femine expression across from Neji's proxy had never been anything but determined, but now, indefinably and without any physical change, there was something both of play and of challenge about it. "Show me."
Power was one thing, but Hanabi had her pride - and holding back or not, Hinata -had- lost those matches. "You first."
The older sister's smile got a little wider, and the younger was actually -grinning-, and then they moved in the same beat.
* * * * *
Uchiha Sasuke looked around himself as he walked once more among the crumbling wreckage of a once-prosperous district... and cared.
When he was alone, it hadn't mattered that the painted signs along the business streets were peeling. It hadn't mattered that the winter rains had carved deep gullies out of the hard-packed earth of the roadways, or that gras was sprouting along the higher ground left behind. It hadn't mattered that the houses' shingles had curled and split, or that the frames were rotting out from underneath them.
Nothing mattered to the dead. And everything that had mattered to him -was- dead.
The only thing that the living could give the dead was vengance, so that was what he had had to settle for.
But they were -alive-!
Not all of them, not the ones most important to him, but -some-! 'Someone, anyone to care for,' as he had told Naruto on their trip back. And their homes -would- matter to them.
Sensei's plans would limit what he could do to prepare for their return, the demands of secrecy being what they were, but as the Uchiha's last surviving representative in Konoha, the care and well-being of the clan's assets was -his- responsibility - a responsibility that he had, in truth, been failing. If even a chance remark had driven that fact, that awareness home, then a sudden and lasting attention to the Uchiha estate would not be outside his established character, however, then he would have an excuse that would allow him to fulfil -both- his duties, to clan and village alike.
He glanced up as he moved into his bedroom - checking for traps and ambush, yes, as any shinobi would, but more meeting the gazes of his parents as they looked out at him over the shoulders of his younger self from that long-ago festival night, all three of them smiling and happy in their grand holiday kimono. There were other photos along the shelf next to that one - cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents... every Uchiha save one. He still had some pictures of -him-, from group shots small and large, but they were locked away where he couldn't accidentally catch sight of them in a bad moment and destroy precious memories before he could regain his control.
Except for the red and white paper fan hanging from one wall, and the newer picture thumbtacked to the windowsill over his desk, the aging photographs were the only decoration in the room.
Moving to the desk and taking out a sheet of paper, he began to write, quickly and efficiently, soon covering both sides with his handwriting's characteristic square, neat characters. The first step would be finding someone - or several someones - both willing and competent to go through the district and identify which buildings needed which repairs, as well as which ones would need to be condemned and completely replaced. After that, such roofing and structural worked as seemed most urgent would come next, then the interiors and external paint once all the houses were to the same point and ready for them. It would take longer doing things that way, but spreading them out would let him cover a greater proportion of the work out of his own pocket, saving a greater share of the clan's funds for when the others returned.
Then there'd be the roads, although the city might be willing to help cover the costs of that, and supplies of goods suitable for long-term storage.
'In case of emergencies,' he'd say, which brought to mind that he'd have to be careful to seem slightly cracked rather than aware of something his audience wasn't.
Eventually he stopped and looked back over the list he had written, then nodded internally and blew gently across its surface to dry the ink before he rolled it up.
'Someone, anyone to care for,' he'd said.
As he turned to go he paused, then pulled the thumbtack under the window out and slid its photo into a frame, which he then set beside the one of his parents at the festival.
'Hey, what does that make us, chopped liver?!" Naruto had answered.
Three new faces grinned at his back as he left - Neshan was kneeling in the center with one arm punching victoriously into the air and the other - the one he had lost - wrapped around Sakura's waist as she stood beside him. She was resting one hand on his nearer shoulder and mirroring the triumphant gesture with the other. Naruto stood behind their leader, throwing one arm out in a victory sign and dragging their scowling final teammate into the frame with the other.
* * * * *
Most of Hanabi's successes against her sister had been due to Hinata's own fears and lack of confidence - but by no means all of them. For all her youth, the younger sister's reflexes were superb, and her kinesthetic sense, her awareness of her body's position and motions, was exception even by the exhalted standards of the Hyuuga, whose combat style relied heavily on such awareness.
So the battle was not -completely- one-sided.
Hinata, for her part, was not without advantages. She was older and more experienced, with five critical years' difference in reach and pure physical strength. Her endurance and condition were superior, again thanks to the added time the older sister had had to spend developing them, and thanks to her Jounin-sensei's efforts to heal the damage to her spirit, her chakra was far close to its natural almost-overwhelming levels than it had been even as recently as the Genin Exam.
Hinata struck first, this time, a straight palm thrust from her off hand backed by enough chakra to knock the smaller girl halfway across the room, but her sister slipped under and to one side of the strike even as one of her own hands stabbed out at the abdominal coil junction carrying chakra from Hinata's heart to her legs.
The elder sister twisted away from the attack quickly and gracefully, but with only partial success. The intended target was missed, but Hanabi's strike still disrupted part of the chakra flow through her sister's abdominal muscles - not a truly dangerous injury in and of itself, but one which would inhibit Hinata's ability to move, attack, or evade.
Hanabi had just begun to smile at her success when her sister's knee seemed to come up from below and to one side as though out of nowhere and slam her jaw closed with an audible 'crack!'
As much as half the audience winced sympathetically, and Hanabi herself staggered as the impact knocked her off her stride before recovering in time to deflect her sister's quick followup.
The younger girl fell back a couple of steps, making a mental note to be wary of further attacks against her head. The Jyuuken only rarely made use of such, because there were only a handful of tenketsu there and all but a couple of them were quite minor, but it was rapidly becoming clear that her sister meant to integrate 'hard' styles into her more conventionally Hyuuga 'soft' tactics to take advantage of her greater mass and strength.
Hanabi's lesser height gave her a considerably shorter reach than her sister, making holding the range of the engagement at arm's length a fairly bad idea, but that same weakness might also be turned into an advantage. The relative difficulty of projecting chakra from parts of the body other than the hands created a zone of vulnerability very close to any Jyuuken user's body, and Hanabi's shorter arms meant that -her- vulnerable zone would be smaller than her sister's - creating a narrow range band where her attacks would be effective but her sister could not effectively respond. Hinata's integration of conventional taijutsu into the Jyuuken would partially nullify that, of course, but since nothing in that direction had been seen from her before she had to be new to the style, and would not yet be able to use it to best effect.
With that in mind, Hanabi charged - straight into her sister's sidekick.
She folded almost in half around Hinata's foot and fell almost straight back under the impact. The taller girl came in on the offensive as she hit the groun, but she managed - somehow, barely - to roll upright and out of the way of one attack, then zag in and around another kick to slide in close and finish the motion exactly where she wanted to be. Strike -there- and -there-, then-
Hanabi's eyes widened as her third strike skidded off of an entire -sheet- of chakra blocking access to her sister's body as Hinata spun to face her - then kept going.
"HAKKESHOU: KAITEN!"
As Heavenly Spins went, it wasn't much. Hinata only made one full revolution, and inexperience made her chakra release noticably irregular - so much so that she was badly knocked about by the completion of the technique. However, as was becoming her custom, the young Heiress of the Hyuuga made up for her relative lack of precision with the judicious application of simple brute force, and spent enough chakra on the technique to knock her opponent literally across the room.
Then she lost her balance and fell flat on her ass.
Hanabi pried herself off of the far wall with a muttered word that she very much hoped her father hadn't been close enough to make out, then took a deep, centering breath and changed stances. Her sister's -real- power was just as impressive as she had remembered, and if she wanted to win then she'd need to do something drastic. If she didn't, then it was blindingly obvious that the only question would be whether it would be the internal burns or external pounding that knocked her out first.
The older of the two had recovered, and came in in a lunge and Hanabi tensed and counterstruck and did something she had never even dared to attempt before.
Two. Four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two.
Sixty-four.
She had missed at least half of her target points, but still hit enough that Hinata gasped. Coughed. Staggered. Then fell.
Hanabi walked closer, ready to make sure of the thing, then doubled over, gagging, as her sister rolled up on her shoulders and straightened both legs in a double kick that picked the smaller girl up bodily and knocked her flying. Another quick flurry of motion and it was all over, with Hinata kneeling with one knee in the small of her sister's back and one finger resting on the rarely-visible tenketsu that connected brain to spinal cord. "D-do you yield?"
The defeated girl smiled. "Hai... Oneesama."
* * * * *
He didn't, in strictest terms, -need- to be in the hospital. If there had been sufficient need, he could easily have fought with at least -most- of his full strength - but a few days of bed rest would greatly speed his overall recovery, so here he was in an embarrasing gown that further revealed the detailed seal work tattooed around his remaining arm and across much of the rest of his body, trying to do his paperwork left-handed.
"Well?" came a voice from the door.
He sat his work aside with a sigh. "'Well,' what? I fucked up by the numbers."
"Neshan-kun, you ask too much of yourself," the Sandaime Hokage chided gently. "You couldn't have known what you would face."
"The hell I couldn't!" the younger man snapped. "Tazuna -told- me she was there, -told- me what she was capable of even before we'd left Konoha! Then -Zabuza- - I didn't even -think- about what it'd take to blackmail him, to threaten him. I was so blind, so fucking -cocksure- that things'd go the way I remembered that I never even -considered- turning back until it was already too fucking -late-!"
Sarutobi Chieshamaru carefully refrained from giving vent to a sigh of his own. Intelligent, dedicated, and caring he might be, but their time working together since the day what looked like a five-year-old child had turned up on his doorstep with a very strange story indeed had proven to him that it would take days, perhaps weeks, to work simple common sense past the younger man's savage intolerance of his own failings. Still - best to start the process now. "Enough! Your team is alive, the customer was satisfied. You did -not- fail."
A moment's mulish glare, then Neshan let out his breath in a huff. "All right." He stared straight through the wall for a moment, then spoke. "My errors and That Woman asid, I think that things went fairly well. The O-Tazuna-Hashi is complete and trade is already starting to pick up. We've added a powerful new bloodline to those resident in Konoha. Naruto's made his debut, and Akatsuki's probe team should be on its way fairly soon. We've identified my opposite number and at least a few of her goals and motivations - my account's already on your desk; we'll probably want to have Anko-senpai talk to Sakura for more insight. I managed to catch the bitch with a doze of tessa - full effect, so it should take her out of the game for at least a year or so. The stress seems to've gelled the kids together even better than we'd hoped." He paused. "And... after the way That Woman threw their nightmares at them, I though i owed them some honesty."
If that meant what the aging Hokage thought it did, then that had -not- been part of the plan, and had -not- been authorized. "And?"
A shrug that was no longer so badly pained as a few days past. "Mostly it was minor stuff or bringing them up to date on my background, but Sasuke managed to put enough pieces together to suspect the worst about his family. I gave him the truth, or most of it anyway, and he's willing to cooperate with the plan as it stands. On the way back he was thinking of making some changes in the Uchiha holdings, but said he had an idea to disguise it - either way, I made him promise to run everything by you, first.
"Past that - nothing else to report."
* * * * *
Neji felt happy, for once, and while his body ran repeatedly through the rote motions of the Jyuuken, most of his mind worried and fretted at the strange new feeling like some querelous grandparent confronting a change in their routine.
It would take time, and no little amount of it, for the memories and lingering feelings of wrongs done to fade and leave his uncle and the two girls who called him 'big brother' as -family- rather than strangers connected by blood...
But he had time, and he knew that that day would come - it had been sealed by his promising Hinata the ally she had been seeking, and by the way Hiashi had slapped down the Clan Council's attempt to have Hinata's victory overturned on the grounds that her 'uncouth behavior' (in other words, her use of taijutsu other than the Jyuuken) was 'unbecoming of the noble and glorious heritage of the Hyuuga' (words failed him.) He knew it was coming - and he looked forward to it.
With that thought, and a typically restrained smile, he finished his last kata and turned to go inside and to bed for the night.
Then an overwhelming wall of force picked him up and slammed him against the broad trunk of one of the massive trees overlooking the Hyuuga clan compound. He blacked out momentarily from the impact, but was brought straight back to conciousness by the stabbing lances of pain that pinned his spread-eagled hands to the rough bark.
He couldn't activate the Byakugan without his hands free, so the owner of the feminine voice that whispered, "You can't escape destiny - it just never means what you thought it did," into his ear only registered as a flash of color in the corner of his eye - red and white and pink - before everything went abruptly dark.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

I get one-to-three everytime I see something I even remotely like.
For example - 'The Cat Returns' from Studio Ghibli... Thrown in Diane Duane's 'Young Wizards' universe for setting (of course, it's still Japan). Add in all new characters: a Wizard about Haru's age, specializing in machines and constructs (particularly aircraft - Miyazaki and I happen to share a certain passion) with a side interest in 'World Gates', and his two wizardry-practicing parents.
Haru finds an old Wizards Manual accidently left behind by the young wizard. It's not really his, it's a keepsake - wizardry has a strong tradition in his family and it belonged to his grandfather. Mom says he needs to study the book version more since he uses the cheater-version: the manual's software version (Ref. Diane Duane's book, 'High Wizardry').
Anywho... Normally, wizard's manuals appear to normal people as just plain ordinary books. Haru actually sees it for what it is and winds up taking the wizard's oath - and then the original story arc of 'The Cat Returns' is just the tip of the iceberg for Haru's Ordeal - a trial by fire for all novice wizards. How hard is it? To paraphrase one of the characters from 'Deep Wizardry': "Do you ever wonder why you see so many missing children in the news? It's because they wind up in trouble that they can't get out of while on Ordeal."
Adventure that's ten times more wild and dangerous ensues.
-NeoRaven
"I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity." -Edgar Allen Poe
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