Time Braid

10. Meditation

Watching the demon that wore my face corrupt Hinata was one of the most painful things I’ve ever been forced to endure. I hadn’t realized how strong my attraction for the quiet girl had become until the demon declared her love, and I recognized the stab of jealousy in my heart for what it was. Then I had to watch as the bitch just took over Hinata’s life and made her like it, using all those techniques I’d learned from Anko but promised never to abuse like that. I’d made that promise because I could feel the temptation to turn Ino and Hinata and anyone else I wanted into a lust-crazed puppet dancing to my tune, and I didn’t want to become that kind of person. But she had no such compunctions. Hell, she got off on it.

Then the loop ended, and I was horrified to discover that whatever the demon had done in that ritual had somehow made this Hinata more than just a pattern of memories. She faded into existence in the darkness to the right of the viewport, a translucent figure of flickering blue chakra wearing nothing but a heavy collar of iron. There was a chain attached to the collar, that stretched off into the shadows around us.

I’d done too much mental sparring with Ino to mistake what I was seeing. Hinata’s soul. She was transparent because she had no body to anchor her to the mortal plane, and since we were in my mindscape that chain must be attached to some part of me.

“Hinata!” I called. “Wake up!”

She can’t hear you, my captor chuckled. She can’t interact with our mindscape at all unless I let her, and I don’t think she needs to know about you yet. Just relax and watch the show, timid girl. By the time I’m done with her she’ll be all ours, and we’ll never be alone again.

Then she turned a clone into a body for Hinata to wear, and plucked her out of our mindscape to shove her into it. I stared at the viewport as my concern and confusion gradually settled into the sinking feeling of having been played. If Hinata’s soul was now bound to follow mine through the loops, I’d never be able to just undo my demonic aspect’s antics and go back to the way things were before. Wait, did this mean that when the loops ended there’d be two of her?

Thinking about that one gave me a headache. Depressed and vaguely ashamed, I turned my attention back to my prison.

I’d developed dozens of mental combat techniques in preparation for my next encounter with Sasuke, but so far they weren’t doing me much good. The cold metal vines that trapped my limbs had proved impervious to even my most destructive attacks, and my more subtle efforts to escape had been equally in vain. I couldn’t transform myself to slip free, or body flicker away, or replace myself with something on the outside. The black chakra that made up the technique was impervious to anything that tried to change it, and blocked anything that would let me slip free so reliably I was beginning to wonder if it was sentient.

But the one thing it didn’t do, that it couldn’t do without killing me and my captor as well, is drain my chakra. A kunoichi’s chakra is a manifestation of her life force, and even limiting the quantity that reaches her body is a tricky and dangerous proposition. Here, in my own mind, it was impossible to cut me off from that power without killing me. Actually, even death might not do the job. So all I had to do was figure out how the prison worked and invent a counter-technique.

Yeah, easy.

Fortunately I’d developed my chakra senses to a high level in my years of training under Tsunade, and such techniques work even better in the mental realm that out in the real world. It was slow going, but as the days blended into weeks I methodically traced the flows of power that held me pinned in place. The strange black chakra that my demon side wielded was monstrously powerful, a malignant force of destruction that made me sick when I stared at it too long. The patterns it formed were obviously the product of an alien school of technique design, full of strange twists and snarls where there should have been seal imprints. But I’d stolen much of my demon side’s knowledge about their meanings, and had the benefit of being able to watch them work whenever I tried to escape. Slowly, bit by bit, I began to piece together what each symbol did.

It was exhausting work, but when I needed a rest there was always the viewport to keep me entertained. Apparently my captor had decided to go on a Sharingan power-up spree mixed with a bit of revenge, and there was a certain satisfaction in watching her work her way through the ranks of my enemies. Sand and Sound jounin, ANBU officials, Kabuto, Hiashi — none of them had any real defense against her Tsukiyomi, and the fights she lured them into before springing her trump card simply gave her a chance to steal their techniques. She had no qualms about torturing any of them to madness and beyond once she had them at her mercy, and in a few short loops she unearthed more details about the Sound-Sand alliance and the reasons behind certain Konoha policies than I’d discovered in twenty years. Looking at what was left of her victims made me glad that those interrogations happened in the target’s mindscape, and not my own.

Unfortunately the key figures weren’t so vulnerable. Danzo had Sharingan eyes of his own under those bandages, and actually broke her technique long enough to kill her with what looked suspiciously like a wood-element jutsu. Sarutobi went into some kind of mental stasis where nothing she did could affect him, and Orochimaru…well, I’m not quite sure what he did, but that loop abruptly ended just after she dropped into his mindscape.

Hinata was there through it all, assisting her with a cheerful intensity I’d never seen before. She’d follow my demon self around all day, dispensing murder and mayhem in pursuit of whatever their current plan might be, and then climb eagerly into her bed at night. The demon who wore my body was alternately cruel and kind to her, sometimes teasing and affectionate, sometimes stern and demanding. To my shock Hinata lapped it up, and quickly began favoring her with the sort of look she’d previously reserved only for Naruto.

There were times when I wished it were me on the outside. I’d never been that interested in the bondage games Anko had introduced me to, being too used to seeing whips and chains as implements of real torture to get into the spirit of using them as toys. But this ‘badass alpha bitch’ role that my demon side had cast herself in struck a chord somewhere inside me. Seeing Hinata looking to me for direction, delivering violent retribution on anyone who tried to hurt her, giggling together over what we’d do to Naruto the next time we had a crossover — those moments were better than anything I’d managed in my own relationship with Hinata.

But my captor was ultimately a demon. A creature of elemental passions, most of them dark and violent, and possessed of all the subtly of a rampaging bijuu. Her casual cruelty and carelessness were usually directed outwards, but Hinata caught enough of it that it wasn’t long before I realized they were doomed in the long run. She enjoyed being dominant so much that she’d tear Hinata down just to feel superior, and that isn’t a good idea with someone who’s lived through the kind of hell my Hinata has. Eventually she’d either snap or break, and either would be a disaster.

That was when I realized that I had a deadline.

So I threw myself back into my work, going deeper and deeper into the meditative trance where my chakra senses were at their sharpest. The viewport that showed the outside world went silent when I closed my eyes, and my current state as a disembodied mind meant I didn’t exactly sleep, so I was free of interruptions in a way I’d never experienced before. I floated for endless days in the increasingly chilly darkness, searching further and further afield for a weakness I could exploit.

My prison was connected to my captor, as you’d expect from a permanent technique. Her chakra circulatory system was filled with the same black chakra, mixed with a bit of sullen blue that could pass for human life force if you didn’t look too close. The blue chakra flowed out from her soul just as you’d normally expect, but the black stuff was different. Its source was a well of darkness that plunged far, far beyond my reach, off into some unfathomable twisted region of summon-space.

The Nidhogg system, the memories I’d stolen from her identified. But I wasn’t sure what that meant. Apparently most of her power came from an outside source, some vast primal construct that acted as a computer, a communication system and a repository of… jutsu? Yes. She called them spells, but the concept was the same. So, it was some sort of giant seal engine, providing young demons with libraries of pre-built techniques and the power to use them. Was it possible to cut off her connection?

“Wake up, sleepyhead!”

I opened my eyes to see my opponent standing before me with a cheerful grin on her lips. Great.

“What do you want?” I asked grumpily.

She waved airily at the viewport, where a half-dressed Hinata was methodically demolishing one of those Hyuuga assassins that used to give us so much trouble. The hot spring resort where they were fighting was getting the worst of it, but it looked like Hinata had finally surpassed her father’s agents.

“Exhibit A,” demon-Sakura offered. “We do things my way, and now Hinata is totally into us. No backtalk, all the hot lesbian sex we want, and she’ll walk barefoot over broken glass to murder her own father for us if we tell her to. Much better than dancing around the issue until she figures out a way to maneuver us out of the picture, which is all your way was going to accomplish.”

I frowned. “Does she even have a choice, with you owning her soul?”

She laughed. “Free will clause, silly. Demon magic can’t control human minds, and that includes soul claims. No, she’s fallen for us because I give her what she needs. Passion, protection and purpose, the three keys to a woman’s heart.”

“It won’t last,” I countered. “It only seems to work because you use my sex techniques so much, and you’re already overdoing it. In a few months either you’ll have to pump up the intensity enough to cause brain damage, or she’ll wake up and start wondering why she’s doing this.”

My opponent rolled her eyes. “You’re just determined to be clueless, aren’t you? Fine, whatever, we’ve got all the time in the world. We’ll keep working on a way to stop the invasion, and maybe I’ll pick up another pet or two. You just let me know when you’re ready to admit that Hinata likes being wrapped around my finger.”

She left me in darkness again. I’ll admit I wasn’t eager to confront her claims, so I returned to my meditation instead. If I could just get free I could just ask Hinata why she seemed so happy being at my other self’s beck and call. Why she was so eager to please. So willing to be led. How someone so sharp and hard in battle could be so soft and compliant in bed.

Why I couldn’t quite decide which of them to be jealous of.

I really didn’t want to examine that thought any further, but if there’s one thing these repeated bouts of mental struggle have taught me it’s the value of being honest with myself. The little dominance games that were practically a way of life for Anko had never affected me like this. Was it because I have feelings for Hinata, where Anko was just a friendly acquaintance? Or was there something deeper amiss?

This time I turned my awareness inward, seeking any hint that the process that created my opponent had done something to my own mind as well. At a superficial level my chakra flows were normal enough, but if I could delve myself the way I’d done with other aspects perhaps I could find something.

It wasn’t easy, but I had plenty of time to practice. Eventually I found the trick of looking at myself from the outside, and dove in. My thoughts and memories swam around me in neatly organized patterns, just as they should. But there were gaps, places where parts of the pattern had been torn away and the rest was only beginning to recover. Scars from the trap that created my rival, and older marks from Naruto’s incautious jutsu.

I nudged a few of the more obvious items back into place, but it was a tiring process. After a timeless interval I decided this would be better done in small stages, and dove deeper. If there was some sort of demonic corruption seeping through my soul it would probably be at the hardest layer to reach, not the easiest.

I found the remains of my old mindscape next, broken trees and blackened vines lying in shriveled heaps like the debris left by a venomous typhoon. The demon killed everything she touched, and she didn’t even seem to realize it. I paused at the base of a sakura tree that had once soared high into the heavens, and shed a tear for lost companions.

“I will rebuild, someday” I promised myself. “I’ll never be content to let my soul be a place of desolation. And next time, I’ll find a way to keep this from happening. I never quite figured out what the trees and flowers and squirrels and fish all symbolized, but…it’s something precious. Something to protect, especially against opponents like this one. Next time I’ll have a defense for all of them.”

I dove again, into a place of warmth and darkness lit by the glow of distant stars. My missing warrior aspect floated there in the void, sleeping peacefully. In her arms slept a ghost with a warm smile and long pink hair, who looked an awful lot like the version of me that Naruto’s transformation had made. Was this another scar left by that encounter, or was our merger less complete than I’d thought?

Come to think of it, I wasn’t feeling much of that benevolent confidence she’d brought to our merger these days.

I embraced them both and reached out with my senses, trying to trigger the temporary merger that I’d sometimes used with my warrior self. But instead of the warm tumble-together confusion I’d expected there was only an odd stretching sensation, as if I were trying to lift a weight much too heavy for me. It seemed that two aspects at once was currently my limit, at least, when I wasn’t supercharged with Naruto’s chakra from that weird technique of his. Perhaps I could trade places with one of them, but my own talents were probably a better fit for the situation than theirs.

But the ghostly state of the second image still troubled me. Gingerly, I put my hands to her insubstantial head and tried to feel her. Unlike the more substantial aspect there was no orderly array of memories floating near the surface for me to read, but there was something there…a sense of presence, a medium where a personality could have been. I closed my eyes and reached deeper, diving far into the pure blue depths where her mind should have been. There were flickers of chakra, a few stray bits of thought-stuff, and a faint gleam of gold. A thread. A slender line of that strange golden chakra I’d glimpsed now and then, leading far off into the unplumbed recesses of my twin’s mindscape.

Well, beating on my prison didn’t seem to be working. Maybe this would lead to a useful insight.

I followed it down for what seemed like days, until the blue glow was lost in the distance behind me and I was surrounded in darkness again. But where the darkness around my prison had been cold and claustrophobic, this one was the endless emptiness of a night sky with no stars. Faint breezes blew against my skin, and eventually my uneasy gaze began picking out hints of movement in the infinite black. Then I began to wonder just what this place was. Was I still in my own mind, or had this thread led me off into some spirit realm? Was this place inhabited? Was I in danger, if it was? Against mortal threats I was confident in my ability to defend myself, but my first encounter with a spiritual enemy hadn’t turned out well.

I stopped and floated in the night, staring out into the darkness and trying to discern what was there. It was black against black, and my eyes soon ached from eyestrain, but that at least I could fix. I gathered my will and prepared a transformation to make my eyes sharper…

The darkness cleared with a nearly audible click, as some blockage I’d never realized was there fell away. The shapes I’d seen before swooped and soared all around me, great abstract swirls and washes of energy in all the colors of the rainbow. As I stared a nearby streamer swept by close enough for me to see that it was a seal array, millions upon millions of symbols arranged in a dizzying flow of complexity that a whole nation of seal masters could never hope to duplicate. And that was a tiny one. The smallest streamers wove together to make larger patterns that were seals as well, and those danced in vast arrays that were themselves tiny parts of something greater, a swelling song of exaltation that filled the infinite void around me with purpose, with meaning, with existence itself.

A tiny sliver of that great cosmic purpose poured into me through my wide eyes, filling my soul with whispers of thoughts no human mind could contain. Suddenly I heard music, a celestial chorus of light and chakra and deeper forces that I could almost name. Sweet agony sang through my veins as I found myself stretching, swelling like a balloon filled with something I had no words to describe.

The pain grew, and I wondered if I would pop like a balloon too. Suddenly terrified, I wrenched my eyes closed and clapped my hands over my ears.

The darkness returned, and I hung there in a quivering ball of terror until the pain finally eased. Now that I’d opened it once I could feel the fragile veil that protected me from that vision of madness. I could lift it again with the slightest effort of will, even by accident if I wasn’t careful. But I wasn’t sure I’d survive another look.

Eventually the trembling in my limbs passed, and I gingerly opened my eyes — and only my eyes. The comforting darkness surrounded me, and thankfully the slender thread I’d been following was still there. But it was no longer the only light source.

I looked down at myself, and discovered that I was shrouded by a faint blue aura of chakra. Startled, I felt with my chakra sense and confirmed that I wasn’t projecting any significant amount of energy, certainly not enough to form a visible aura. Yet there it was, clear as day. Ghostly streamers of blue shot through with tiny specks of gold swirled about my tenketsu, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. And a faint thread of golden light emerged from my chest to trail back the way I’d come.

Apparently I’d just acquired some kind of chakra sight. That could be useful if it turned out to work back in the real world, but I wasn’t going to count on that. Wherever this place was, it was obvious that the normal rules didn’t apply here.

Eventually I turned my attention back to the thread I’d been following, and set out again. This time I let the darkness stay black, and pulled my veil tighter when the forms beyond it threatened to resolve into visibility. The thread stretched on and on, and though I was confident now that I’d find my missing aspect at the other end of it I eventually began to despair of finishing the trip.

But just as I was beginning to consider turning back, I realized that I now had a distinct impression of floating up instead of down. Then the thread began to brighten, and a faint speck of blue became visible somewhere far above me. I quickened my pace, eager to finally discover what lay at the other end. The speck resolved into a swirl of blue, with a hint of other shapes beyond. I zoomed upward, gaining buoyancy as I moved, breaking out into a smile as I saw the familiar snowflake patterns of my own thoughts and memories unfolding before me.

Then I broke through into a burning city, and for a moment I had no idea who I was or what was happening. I staggered, and a Sand nin in a chuunin vest took advantage of my distraction to thrust a kunai through my heart.

That got my attention.

“Oh, no you don’t!” I snarled. “I’m not dying before I get some answers!”

I ripped the kunai out of my chest and slashed his throat out with it, then transformed myself to a healthy state. An instant later I shot up three inches and gained thirty pounds of lean muscle, and the pale-faced genin squad that was trying to surround me all backed away. One of them tried a dispel, and I smiled at them.

“It’s not an illusion, kids,” I told them. “Lucky for you, I don’t have time for small fry.”

I leapt to the top of the nearest building, and confirmed with a single glance that this was the fall of Konoha. The giant three-headed snake was fighting Jiraiya to the south, while off to the north I could see the Shukaku throwing down with…a dragon? Yes. A Western-style dragon with black and gold scales. It was every bit as big as the Shukaku, and was tearing into the bijuu in a whirlwind of fangs and claws.

Where the heck did a dragon come from?

Hey, you’re me! A familiar voice in the back of my head exclaimed. The real me, I mean. But how did you get here?

“You’re the me that Naruto made, aren’t you?” I answered with a smile. “Yeah, I’m the original. I noticed you were missing and went looking for you, and it turns out we’re still connected somehow. But where are we? Don’t tell me you’re having loops now too?”

No, silly, this is Naruto’s loop.

I was so startled I nearly fell off the roof.

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed. “That weird trip took me to someone else’s loop? This is bigger than I thought. But how did you get here?”

Beats me. Sometimes when Naruto does that transformation thing on the old Sakura I wake up here, and I can remember things from one loop to the next now. But he says sometimes he gets me, and sometimes he gets the old memory-jumbled version, and he’s been going nuts trying to figure out why. Do you have any idea why?

That was an interesting question, but before I could consider the implications some idiot threw a spread of kunai with explosive tags on them at me. I plucked the blades out of the air with chakra strings, defusing the tags with a deft twist of will and igniting them again as I threw them back. The roof the attack had come from went up with a gratifying bang. My attacker was body flickering away by then, of course, but one of my own shuriken reached his landing spot about a millisecond after he did. He went down in a fountain of blood as the supersonic projectile blew a hole through his armor, his chest and the building behind him.

That was when I noticed that my current body held far more chakra than I’d ever had at my disposal. Enough chakra to level cities, or move mountains. So much I was actually a little high on it, and anything I spent was instantly replaced.

Damn, you’re good. Um, the plan was for me to stop these guys and go help Naruto look for Orochimaru. Do you mind helping out?

“Heh. Watch this!”

I cast my awareness out over the battle raging around us, tasting the tiny sparks of life force darting among the remaining buildings. I couldn’t tell friend from foe without seeing them, but that wasn’t a problem. Usually I had to keep my earth techniques small to conserve energy, but with this surging geyser of what must be Naruto’s chakra keeping me filled to overflowing that would be silly.

My awareness merged with the heavy elemental chakra of earth and stone, and I brought down every building within six blocks with a gesture. Every living thing was sucked into the earth in its own little pocket of air, in a mass version of Earth Tomb I’d never been able to pull off on my own. Then I wove a Farsight genjutsu around myself, and used it to take a momentary peek into each tomb. A few held civilians, or ninja with Konoha forehead protectors, and those I returned to the surface. The rest, I collapsed.

You’ve got to show me how to do that, my local aspect pleaded. It would have taken me an hour to stop that attack.

“Sure,” I replied as I turned my attention to the clash of titans north of us. “So, where did the dragon come from?”

She giggled. Naruto’s been getting really good with those reality-warping transformations of his. He started out just making himself older and stronger, but then he figured out he doesn’t have to stay human. So he started growing claws and teeth, turning into fox-monsters and giant animals and stuff, and it turns out that using huge amounts of chakra at once is actually easier in a bigger body. So then he decided to find out what the biggest, toughest, nastiest thing a guy with a full tail of chakra can turn into is, and here we are.

The dragon chose that moment to unleash a bolt of fiery breath so hot it outshone the sun for an instant, and I might have been blinded if I hadn’t absently fixed the damage to my eyes. When I could see again there was nothing left of the Shukaku but a sizzling mound of glass.

“That’s Naruto?” I asked weakly.

You got it, she answered smugly.

“Good god,” I breathed. “I want that man’s babies!”

You and me both. It’s too bad you got here at the end of the loop, isn’t it?

“You’re right,” I suddenly realized. “The barrier technique at the arena is down, so Orochimaru’s fight with the Hokage is already over. We don’t have much time. Merge with me, will you? You need to know what I’ve been up to, and I need to know what’s going on.”

Sure, she agreed, and we flowed together as naturally as breathing. There was only a moment of disorientation, and then I was flitting across the rooftops towards my man. I reached him just as he reverted to human form, looking a little tired but still wreathed in enough chakra to fight a war. He could hardly miss my approach when he had me on a chakra link, so I dove straight through his aura and wrapped myself around him.

He kissed me, and for a timeless moment I knew nothing else.

“Hey, you’re done early,” he observed when he finally pulled away. “Did those Sand jounin end up with a different group this time?”

“No, I’m just that awesome,” I teased. “Sand’s jounin all suck at high-energy engagements, but it helps that I’ve got the original Sakura in my head right now. With your chakra feed backing up my full skill I could take their whole army apart single-handed.”

“Sakura?” He gazed searchingly into my eyes. “You’re serious? This isn’t some kind of joke?”

“It’s really me, partner,” I confirmed.

“But, how?” He asked, now completely befuddled. “It isn’t a loop start. Are you saying you found a way to travel between loops?”

“Looks that way,” I confirmed with a smug grin. “It was a long, surreal trip, and I’m not sure if I can make a habit of it. I didn’t even realize what I was doing, I was just trying to follow the connection between the original me and your perfect girlfriend version. You know, I think both versions of me might be able to summon each other with a bit of work.”

“Sakura, that’s great!” He kissed me again, and for a few moments it was all I could do not to tear his clothes off and show him how happy I was to see him. How did I ever get anything done around him with this supercharged libido he’d given me?

Oh, right. I just jumped him whenever the urge hit me, and made him be the one to exercise self-control when we needed to be productive. What a sybaritic existence. Maybe I could switch places, and let this version of me deal with demon girl for awhile?

“Does it have to be you, or do you think I could do it too?” He asked eagerly. “If my Sakura Transformation is already getting part of you somehow, maybe we could re-work it as a real summoning technique.”

That killed the mood. I winced, and pulled away.

“That might not be such a good idea,” I admitted reluctantly. “I’m, ah, not really myself on the outside right now.”

He looked so crestfallen I almost laughed. “Why not? Wait, what do you mean, not yourself?”

“Well, um, you see, it turns out that Sharingan eyes are actually some kind of demonic summoning contract. And, well, giving myself a pair wasn’t such a great idea. So, now there’s this demon version of me walking around in my body, and I’m stuck in the back of my head, and we’re arguing about good and evil and the meaning of life while we try to convince each other to give up and quit trying to take over.”

He stared at me. Blinked. Blinked again.

“Only you, Sakura.”

I swatted his shoulder. “Hey! I didn’t ask for this!”

“Right, of course not,” he sighed. “So, a demon version of you, huh? What’s she doing, trying to destroy the village or something?”

I suddenly found the glassy ground at our feet very interesting.

“No. She’s, um, trying to convince me that I’d be happier if I let her win. By, ah, corrupting our friends in fun and interesting ways. I think she wants to take me over, and turn all the kunoichi we like into her personal harem or something.”

“Ah. Not into guys, then?” He asked conversationally.

“No, she definitely wants you. But she’s, er, kinky. Dom her a little, and she’ll be following you around like a stray kitten.”

“I see. You know, this isn’t the way to convince me we should get rid of her,” Naruto said jokingly.

I chuckled. “I guess you’ve got a point. Look, I’ll deal with her myself, one way or another. I just didn’t want you to be caught by surprise if we had a crossover loop or something. I’m sure she’d be a lot of fun, but she’s also psychotic.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said seriously. “Just remember, I’m here if you need me.”

He hugged me, and this time I didn’t try to stay in control. I needed to know I wasn’t alone. That I was loved. That there was somewhere I could relax, and let down my defenses, and know that I’d be safe.

Nothing makes a girl feel safe like being held by a man who can turn into a dragon.

I felt that internal tug again when the loop ended. My temporary merger dissolved as I was pulled away from Naruto’s loop, and cast out into the darkness again. There was a rushing sensation of motion, and my veil slipped for a moment as I instinctively tried to orient myself. I caught a fleeting glimpse of vast complexity rushing by as I was pulled forward in a net of golden power. Then I was flung headfirst into a whirling cyclone of seal-streamers, and frantically tried to brace for impact…

…and awoke in my prison of thorns, in the darkness of my own mindscape.

I sagged. For an instant I’d expected to be in my old, familiar bed, but that would be too easy.

Then I realized that I’d moved, and opened my eyes again to frantically examine my prison. Before I’d been wrapped so tight I couldn’t even wiggle, but now there was an inch or so of give to the cold metal. But as I examined them the vines solidified again, becoming just as immutably rigid as before.

“What the hell?”

I hadn’t done anything to my prison, and my captor didn’t seem to be paying attention. A glance at the viewport revealed that she was fully occupied…um…yeah. Wow. ‘Fully occupied’ was definitely an accurate description. What a slut.

Well, at any rate, she wasn’t likely to notice anything I did at the moment. But why would my prison suddenly weaken like that, and how did it get reinforced if she didn’t do it?

“All I did was go away for awhile,” I whispered to myself. “I suppose some of my chakra went with me, and I wasn’t paying attention for…how long was that? Days? Weeks? Quite awhile, if demon girl isn’t concentrating on Hinata anymore. But why would that matter…”

Then it hit me.

“I’m an idiot,” I grumbled. “It’s a parasitic trap. It turns my own power against me, so when I was mostly gone it weakened. But how can that be? Those things are easy to beat, you just stop struggling and let it fall away. If that worked on Sharingan genjutsu everyone would know it. It’s hard to believe they’ve fooled the whole ninja world about something like that.”

I considered that statement, and gasped.

“Belief. If you believe a parasitic trap is unbreakable, then it will be for you. No matter what you try your own chakra will turn against itself, and all your techniques will fail. Which is exactly what I’ve been seeing. There must be something else, some little twist that would keep the standard counters from working and explain why I can’t see it leeching my chakra. But it doesn’t have to be anything complicated, because once people started expecting Sharingan genjutsu to be unbreakable that belief would be enough to make it true. As deadly as the other Sharingan powers are, it would be easy to kill the occasional genjutsu master who figures it out. That could be it. It doesn’t have to be any more than that.”

Eager to follow up on the clue I dove back into my meditation, focusing again on the trap that held me in place. My inner sight was much clearer than before, and I wondered for a moment just what my experience in the place between loops had done to me. But I pushed that concern aside in favor of my new project. The black chakra pulsed through my prison just as it had before, but there had to be more to it than that. An illusion to pierce, a veil to lift, another level…

I fell into the web of malevolent power, through the churning surface and into the turbulent layers beneath. There was normal human chakra there, faint streamers of it hidden beneath the demonic taint. I touched one, and felt again the confused misery of my first few loops. Another was my despair after escaping from Sasuke, when even Tsunade proved unable to cure me. The loneliness of the long loops before I’d found my second self, and again when having myself as my only companion had begun to wear.

I followed the strands back to their source, and sure enough it was me. The dark power I’d thought so irresistible was anchored to my own darker moments, somehow exploiting the memory of my past miseries to leech away a part of my strength. I strained against my bonds for a moment, and watched the construct suck out more of my own chakra to counter me. Yes. I was right. It was mostly my own strength that was holding me helpless.

Fascinated, I began to run through my repertoire of genjutsu counters.

“Hello? Hello? Excuse me, is there anyone in there? I really need to talk to you for a minute.”

The voice pulled my awareness back to my surroundings just as I’d been starting to make real progress, and for a moment I was annoyed. Then I opened my eyes, and realized that it wasn’t my captor who was talking to me.

She was perfection in miniature. Slender and delicately curved, with huge blue eyes and a long mane of honey-blonde hair that drifted around her hovering form in a golden halo. Her dress was an elegant creation of ribbons and bows and fantastic embroidery that even a daimyo’s wife would envy; daring, classy, and impossible to move in without the clothing animation technique she appeared to be running. But her expression was businesslike, and she held an ornate clipboard made of translucent crystal in one hand.

“Oh, good,” she said with a friendly smile, “I was afraid you weren’t going to wake up. I’m Astoria, goddess third class, and I’m a trainee with the sysadmin’s office. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I needed to ask you a few questions to finish my incident report.”

I blinked at her in surprise. “Goddess? Incident? Wait, you’re not me! Can you help me? Please? I don’t want to end up being a demon!”

“Then don’t,” she said firmly. “I’m sorry, my office doesn’t get involved in local trials and such. I don’t even know what the rules are in this world, and I certainly don’t want to ruin your chances. But you’re stronger than I was at your age, and I know the local kami must be rooting for you, so I’m sure you’ll pull through. Now, according to the log files you recently left this mortal-world sandbox to visit another one. Since you don’t have a transport medium that means you were exposed to the multiversal process space in transit, which is pretty dangerous to anyone but the sysadmins. Did you have any problems?”

“Process space?” I repeated dumbly, a bit overwhelmed by the idea of an actual kami paying me a visit. Then it clicked. “Oh, that. Yes, that was…um…indescribable. But I think I stopped looking in time.”

She almost dropped her pen. “You saw? Oh, dear, that’s not good. There could be side effects. You didn’t hear anything, did you?”

“I did,” I admitted. “A chorus…I can almost remember the words. Um, what kind of side effects?”

She flitted around me, wringing her hands nervously. “Oh dear, oh dear. All sorts of things. Personality damage, premature manifestations, sudden loss of mortality. It depends on what parts you saw. Can you understand me?”

The last part was sung in a language so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. I realized it was the same language as the cosmic symphony I’d heard before, and hearing it again set the same chorus echoing through my head. I knew instinctively that it was only a tiny part of some greater whole, but it resonated with something else in me. The demon Sakura had known a different part of the same song…

“Yes, I…” No, that wasn’t right. Those were just words. My head swam, and the fragments spun together.

I understand you, Astoria, I sang uncertainly. But where her song had soared on wings of grace, mine tottered along like a drunken sailor. Something vital was missing.

Astoria darted back in front of me, and gave me a sympathetic look. “Ouch. That’s a lot of confusion. Please, tell me you remember your name?”

“Its Sakura,” I replied. Then I frowned. The part of me that had understood Astoria’s song insisted that wasn’t quite right. I wasn’t a wavering train of compression waves moving through air. I was…something more, something different that just ‘person’ or ‘girl’ or ‘kunoichi’. The first note rose to my lips almost of its own accord, and I sang.

Sakura.

Delicate flower and enduring tree. Dancing flame and immutable earth. Passion and calculation. Artful elegance and brutal violence. Ephemeral and eternal, a kaleidoscope of self-referential contradictions stretching to the farthest corners of the universe, yet ending only in myself.

Astoria smiled in relief. “Good. You had me worried there for a minute, but as long as you can still voice your name you should be fine. Just remember you’ve had some personality stress, so don’t go doing any major reapportionments until you’re fully recovered. Now, can you sign this… oh, right, I guess not. Drat, how am I going to file my incident report without your signature? If I don’t get a proper signed statement I just know I’ll get another lecture from Skuld-sama, but I can’t just hold this until you’re done. I’ve got too many open incidents as it is.”

She bit her lip, and I suddenly realized how young she looked. Was “goddess third class” the kami equivalent of a genin? Apparently so. But if she was that inexperienced, this might be an opportunity.

“I think I can help, if you don’t mind doing me a favor,” I offered hesitantly.

“Really?” She asked hopefully. “That would be great. I’m supposed to average less than a day closing these incident reports, but I keep getting all these weird cases that take forever to figure out. I could really use a quick close to get my average back down. But I’m just a trainee, so I’m not sure what I could do for you in return. All I can really do is look up records and file reports.”

“That might be enough,” I reassured her. “You see, I’m living in a time loop right now, so I bet we can game the system. Just give me a way to contact you, and once I get free I’ll call you up at the start of the next loop. Heck, that might actually be before the date on your incident report.”

“Time loop?” She gave me a stunned look. “Wow, no wonder this world feels so weird. But you’re right, our performance tracker app runs on calendar time instead of the system clock. Hey, that could actually put me ahead for the week! Thanks, Sakura, I really will owe you one for that. So, what was that favor you wanted?”

“I want to know what caused the loop,” I replied. “And more importantly, what will stop it.”

“Oh. Hey, yeah, I can do that! A spell that big has to have something major behind it, maybe even the Ultimate Force. That means we’ll have a big red advisory flag on it just so everyone knows not to get in the way, and there’s always background files attached to priority alerts. It’s a deal, Sakura. Here, I’ll leave you my card.”

She plucked a glowing rectangle of light out of nowhere, and deftly reached through the thorns to place it behind my ear.

“Give me a call when you’re ready, and I’ll portal you up to settle things. Good luck with your ascension trial!”

She took a step back, and vanished in a flash of golden light.

“Wait, what? What the heck is an ascension trial?”

But she was already gone. I contemplated the darkness for a moment, and chuckled.

“She thought I was some kind of kami trainee like her, didn’t she?” I laughed. “Oh, that’s a good one. Somehow, I doubt they accept psycho half-demon ninja girls into kami school.”

Then I frowned thoughtfully. “If the universe has kami on one side and demons on the other, and both sides are too big to keep track of all their own people, and their conflict is low-key enough that she didn’t immediately get into a fight with my demon….I bet they have ninja in the spirit world, too. I wonder how you go about getting recruited?”

It was a thought worth thinking about, assuming I ever died for real. But I had more immediate problems at the moment. So I focused my attention inward, and went back to unraveling how my prison’s ‘feed on your past miseries’ feature actually worked.